Cunningly

adv. Forms: see CUNNING a. [-LY².] In a cunning manner.

  1.  With skill, knowledge or wisdom; wisely, cleverly, knowingly. Obs. or arch.

  In early quots. often = ‘with good breeding, politely.’

c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, Theodera, 402. Hyme ful connandly scho gret.

c. 1385.  Chaucer, L. G. W., 1485, Hypsip. & Medea. Fful cunnyngely these lordes two he grette.

c. 1400.  Destr. Troy, 838. Iason carpes to the kyng, conyngly he said.

1413.  Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, IV. xxxviii. (1859), 63. He salewed hyr goodly, and she welcomed hym ful connyngly, as she wel couthe.

c. 1425.  Wyntoun, Cron., V. xii. 275. Hucheown … In-til his gest hystoriale Has tretyd þis mar cunnandly.

c. 1460.  Towneley Myst., 160. This barne … That carps thus conandly.

1519.  Interl. Four Elem., in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 37. He hath expound cunningly Divers points of cosmography.

1592.  R. D., Hypnerotomachia, 91. Which thoughts were bewraied by my countenance … which she cunningly perceiuing [etc.].

1870.  Morris, Earthly Par., II. III. 341. Two wise men … who can Talk cunningly about the ways of man.

  2.  With skilful art. (Now a literary archaism.)

a. 1400[?].  Chester Pl. (Shaks. Soc.), I. 114. He so cuninglye this worcke caste.

1555.  Eden, Decades, 31. Chayers and stooles … very coonningely wrowght.

1682.  Milton, Hist. Mosc., ii. (1851), 483. They shoot wondrous cunningly: thir Arrow heads are sharpned Stones.

1836–48.  B. D. Walsh, Aristoph., Clouds, I. iv. Cunningly-wrought halls.

1883.  Ld. R. Gower, My Remin., II. xxi. 52. Inigo Jones … decorated the front of Kirby … in cunningly carved stone.

  3.  With knowledge employed to conceal facts or designs, or to deceive or circumvent; craftily, artfully. (The current sense.)

1603.  Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 48. So cunningly had he vnder the vaile of pietie, shadowed his most execrable treacherie.

1622.  R. Hawkins, Voy. S. Sea (1847), 104. The cunninglier to colour their greatest disorders, and robberies.

1719.  D’Urfey, Pills, IV. 201. Women are wanton, yet cunningly Coy.

1856.  Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xi. 124. Your lash … is apt to fasten itself cunningly round bits of ice.

1867.  Deutsch, Rem. (1874), 8. He saw the cunningly-laid trap.