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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Beowulf
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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:
And yet there was still a sense that Hollywood underserved her canny ability to appear both ferocious and vulnerable, whether as a horror heroine in “Scream 4” or a superpowered cheerleader on “Heroes.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
But the pair are just the latest in the long line of hustlers, fraudsters and canny opportunists who have been working to undermine science in this country for more than a century.
From Salon ● Aug. 13, 2026
It will take more than stolen KitKats and canny marketing to turn the company around.
From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026
The recent Rome runner-up is the canny choice to go all the way - although he could face Djokovic in the fourth round.
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
“I would suggest Proverbs, 24th Chapter, 21st verse,” said the old minister, with a canny gleam in his eye which Kit understood as John began to read.
From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare
The book reveals negotiations over public funding for the royals when the Sovereign Grant was introduced in 2012 - and presents the Palace as cannier about money than their counterparts in Westminster.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2025
If Adams were cannier and less damaged, he could find a comfortable way to win.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2024
But it would have been cannier of Barnes to make her a genuinely convincing provocateur.
From New York Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
But to do this, philanthropists need to be cannier about their analysis and tactics.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 8, 2020
Ca' cannier and be a wee thing quieter in your langwidge.
From The Half-Hearted by John Buchan
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
To the south of France’s canniest festival of cinema, then, where a buffet of Mel Gibson movies is being shopped to apparently voracious buyers.
From The Guardian ● May 16, 2019
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 Shirley Watkins
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.
