Artful

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Artful \Art"ful\, a. [From {Art}.]
     1. Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill.
        [Archaic] "Artful strains." "Artful terms." --Milton.
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     2. Artificial; imitative. --Addison.


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     3. Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance;
        dexterous; skillful.
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              He [was] too artful a writer to set down events in
              exact historical order.               --Dryden.
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     4. Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing;
        crafty; as, an artful boy. [The usual sense.]
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              Artful in speech, in action, and in mind. --Pope.
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              The artful revenge of various animals. --Darwin.
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     Syn: Cunning; skillful; adroit; dexterous; crafty; tricky;
          deceitful; designing. See {Cunning}.
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From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  artful
       adj 1: not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance of
              frankness; "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine,
              and hypocritical operator, who...exemplified...the
              most disagreeable traits of his time"- David
              Cannadine; "a disingenuous excuse" [syn: {disingenuous}]
              [ant: {ingenuous}]
       2: marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with
          cunning or craft; "the artful dodger"; "an artful choice
          of metaphors" [ant: {artless}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  96 Moby Thesaurus words for "artful":
     Byzantine, Machiavellian, Machiavellic, acute, adroit,
     ambidextrous, arch, astute, cagey, calculating, canny, chiseling,
     clever, collusive, covinous, crafty, crooked, cunning, cute,
     deceitful, deep, deep-laid, designing, devious, dexterous,
     diplomatic, dishonest, disingenuous, double, double-dealing,
     double-faced, double-minded, double-tongued, doublehearted,
     duplicitous, facile, faithless, false, false-principled,
     falsehearted, feline, finagling, forsworn, foxy, fraudulent,
     furtive, guileful, indirect, ingenious, insidious, insincere,
     inventive, knowing, oily, pawky, perfidious, perjured, politic,
     ready, resourceful, scheming, serpentine, sharp, shifty, shrewd,
     slick, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, specious,
     stealthy, strategic, suave, subtile, subtle, superficial, supple,
     surreptitious, tactical, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky,
     two-faced, uncandid, underhand, underhanded, unfrank, unsincere,
     untruthful, vulpine, wary, wily