1.
[syn: disingenuous, artful]
2. marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft;
- Example: "the artful dodger"
- Example: "an artful choice of metaphors"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Artful \Art"ful\, a. [From Art.]
1. Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill.
[Archaic] "Artful strains." "Artful terms." --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. Artificial; imitative. --Addison.
[1913 Webster]
3. Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance;
dexterous; skillful.
[1913 Webster]
He [was] too artful a writer to set down events in
exact historical order. --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
4. Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing;
crafty; as, an artful boy. [The usual sense.]
[1913 Webster]
Artful in speech, in action, and in mind. --Pope.
[1913 Webster]
The artful revenge of various animals. --Darwin.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Cunning; skillful; adroit; dexterous; crafty; tricky;
deceitful; designing. See Cunning.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
artful
adj 1: not straightforward or candid; giving a false appearance
of frankness; "an ambitious, disingenuous, philistine,
and hypocritical operator, who...exemplified...the most
disagreeable traits of his time"- David Cannadine; "a
disingenuous excuse" [syn: disingenuous, artful]
[ant: artless, ingenuous]
2: marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with
cunning or craft; "the artful dodger"; "an artful choice of
metaphors" [ant: artless]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
96 Moby Thesaurus words for "artful":
Byzantine, Machiavellian, Machiavellic, acute, adroit,
ambidextrous, arch, astute, cagey, calculating, canny, chiseling,
clever, collusive, covinous, crafty, crooked, cunning, cute,
deceitful, deep, deep-laid, designing, devious, dexterous,
diplomatic, dishonest, disingenuous, double, double-dealing,
double-faced, double-minded, double-tongued, doublehearted,
duplicitous, facile, faithless, false, false-principled,
falsehearted, feline, finagling, forsworn, foxy, fraudulent,
furtive, guileful, indirect, ingenious, insidious, insincere,
inventive, knowing, oily, pawky, perfidious, perjured, politic,
ready, resourceful, scheming, serpentine, sharp, shifty, shrewd,
slick, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, specious,
stealthy, strategic, suave, subtile, subtle, superficial, supple,
surreptitious, tactical, treacherous, trickish, tricksy, tricky,
two-faced, uncandid, underhand, underhanded, unfrank, unsincere,
untruthful, vulpine, wary, wily