canny
Americanadjective
adverb
-
in a canny manner.
-
Scot. carefully; cautiously.
adjective
-
shrewd, esp in business; astute or wary; knowing
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dialect good or nice: used as a general term of approval
-
lucky or fortunate
adverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of canny
Explanation
If you're a canny investor, you know how to spend money to make money — that is, you're prudent, farsighted, and capable of protecting your own interests, particularly in matters of finance or business. In contemporary usage, canny is a synonym for shrewd. Both words mean smart or sharp-witted, but they also suggest that someone is smart in a self-serving and possibly even tricky way. Canny is also related to the word cunning — another adjective meaning "wise," but with negative connotations. Uncanny is not the opposite of canny — it means "weird" or "unsettling."
Vocabulary lists containing canny
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It will take more than stolen KitKats and canny marketing to turn the company around.
From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026
She beamed when the first wicket came - New Zealand batter Georgia Plimmer done in the air by some canny flight and picking out mid-off.
From BBC ● May 10, 2026
They also share a reputation for being canny directors of actors, understanding from their experience in the spotlight what to say to a performer and when to say it.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
The reason for that is resoundingly apparent in the documentary “Bernstein’s Wall,” opening at New York’s Film Forum this weekend, which focuses on both Bernstein’s political activism and politically canny sense of his public.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 23, 2026
He waited, canny enough not to commit himself until his wife had agreed to follow suit.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
How do they take a cannier approach to prevent Max Verstappen swooping in and stealing the championship from under their nose?
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2025
But that film was a cannier bid for next-level success, offsetting its three-act corniness with emotional stakes that led to a crescendo of its genius headliner’s performance prowess.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 16, 2025
Governments have become cannier at exploiting the connectivity of the digital era to advance their interests and weaken their enemies.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2021
In this relationship, she’s the cannier and the crueler.
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2019
He freely consented to settle every penny he had upon his wife, and, as his mother-in-law justly remarked, “Many a cannier man wouldn’t just have done that.”
From Six to Sixteen A Story for Girls by Ewing, Juliana Horatia Gatty
Lord Wolfson is widely considered to be one of the canniest brains in UK business, and while he conceded next year would be tough, there were reasons for optimism.
From BBC ● Nov. 9, 2022
But control is just one effect, and in some ways the canniest — nothing else so efficiently earns the reader’s trust and can lull her into sleepy credulity.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2021
One of the canniest aspects of The Glass Hotel is Mandel’s depiction of how people rationalize the ways they have harmed others.
From Slate ● Mar. 24, 2020
But Sarah isn't about to relinquish her grip on either her sanity or her fortune, and Mirren, among the canniest of screen actors, supplies a rational impulse for her every Miss Havisham-like eccentricity.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2018
He couldn’t write his own name, but he was the canniest, drollest—and talk about strength!
From Jane Lends A Hand by Watkins, Shirley
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
