canny
Americanadjective
adverb
-
in a canny manner.
-
Scot. carefully; cautiously.
adjective
-
shrewd, esp in business; astute or wary; knowing
-
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:
"His reaction, for someone who's normally pretty canny when it comes to the media, is extraordinarily counterproductive," said Bale.
From Barron's ● Jul. 6, 2026
Already celebrated by the French for his electricity experiments and the musings in “Poor Richard’s Almanack,” Franklin quickly perfected a broad and canny celebrityhood.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
Credit must go to Dean, who conceded only two from the 13th over with her canny off-spin.
From BBC ● May 30, 2026
Once considered a canny innovator, and then, with his purchase of the flailing Washington Post, a white knight, he has since become the embodiment of capitalism run amok.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
He or she is a deep thinker, canny like a fox, inspirational, and in many cases the toughest person in the boat.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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
But it would have been cannier of Barnes to make her a genuinely convincing provocateur.
From New York Times ● Aug. 17, 2022
"If Don had been better informed, he might have been cannier about the potential complications that come with coaching an adolescent girl. Clearly, he wasn't a predator," she added.
From BBC ● Apr. 20, 2022
In this relationship, she’s the cannier and the crueler.
From Slate ● Aug. 8, 2019
She thought of those cannier, less docile hens and laughed.
From Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise by Phillips, David Graham
Simon Russell Beale, to my mind the canniest wielder of dramatic poetry in the English language, was honored for his mesmerizing lead performance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2022
Wolfson is widely considered to be one of the canniest operators in UK retail and NEXT's significant on-line business has helped the company weather the assault of e-commerce on traditional retail.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2021
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
In one of the canniest touches in Sally Rooney’s novel, Conversations With Friends, published earlier this year, a writer idolized by Rooney’s 21-year-old narrator and her best friend is celebrated for her collection of essays.
From Slate ● Oct. 23, 2017
“You always were the canniest little thing—always, always.”
From A Very Naughty Girl by Meade, L. T.
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.
