ARTFUL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Artful

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɑrtfəl/ Listen

adjective

Artful adj.

Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill. (Archaic) "Artful strains." "Artful terms."

Artificial; imitative.

Using or exhibiting much art, skill, or contrivance; dexterous; skillful. "He (was) too artful a writer to set down events in exact historical order."

Cunning; disposed to cunning indirectness of dealing; crafty; as, an artful boy. (The usual sense.) "Artful in speech, in action, and in mind." "The artful revenge of various animals."

Synonyms: Cunning; skillful; adroit; dexterous; crafty; tricky; deceitful; designing. See Cunning.

See images of 'Artful'

Etymology of 'Artful'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Artful" Quotes from Famous Books

... pointed this artful compliment by a bow of the deepest respect, and threw open the door for my ...

— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... to have been the natural language of Burns. The Master Tootie whose skill he records, lived in Mauchline, and dealt in cows: he was an artful and contriving person, great in bargaining and intimate with all the professional tricks by which old cows are made to look young, and six-pint hawkies pass for ...

— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... see the extreme artfulness of the plot, but in all wrongdoing there is sooner or later a slip up. Be the plot ever so artful, or however safe the wrongdoing may appear, ...

— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... he saw the Artful Dodger ahead of us on the dock. He went over and looked up and down and under an old upturned rowboat, then peered over the dock and swore a harmless oath that if we could catch him we would run ...

— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... she, as the door closed upon Mrs. Dinks, "it is a scheming, artful woman. Her son has no money, and I doubt if he ever will have any. Boniface will be implacable. I know him. He is capable of seeing his daughter suffer. Fanny has made a frightful mistake. Poor Fanny! she was not so clever as she thought herself. There is only one hope—that ...

— Trumps • George William Curtis

More quotes...