Emily Dickinson Lexicon

CUN'NING, n.

1. Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity. [Obs.]. Let my right hand forget her cunning. – Ps. cxxxvii.
2. Art; artifice; artfulness; craft; shrewdness; the faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose. Hence, in a bad sense, deceitfulness or deceit; fraudulent skill or dexterity. – Locke. Discourage cunning in a child; cunning is the ape of reason.