crafty

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English crafti,^[2][3] inherited from Old English cræftig (“strong, powerful; skilful”),^{[4][2][3][5][6]} formed from cræft (“strength; skill”), the source of craft, and the suffix -ig, modern -y.^[3][7][6][8] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *kraftugaz.^[1] The OED lists cognates, all meaning "strong, powerful": Old Frisian kreftich, Old Dutch creftih (Dutch krachtig), Old Saxon kraftag, Old High German kreftig (German kräftig), Old Norse krǫptugr, Swedish kraftig and Danish kraftig.^[9][8] The OED notes that the senses of skill and cunning are English developments, as with the noun craft.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Strong, powerful: in the Old English translation of Orosius, about 893 in Barnhart's dating.^[3][9] The Old English adjective already meant skilful or ingenious too,^[9][10] a sense Barnhart dates to 971;^[3] the OED's first example is from the Blickling Homilies.^[9] The Middle English form crafti is recorded from probably before 1200, or the mid-12th century in Etymonline's dating.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The inherited sense "strong, powerful" was already much rarer in Old English than the senses of skill, and it died out by about 1300.^[9][8] The bad sense "cunning, wily" has been dated to about 1200 by Barnhart and Etymonline,^[3][2] but the OED, revised in 2020, finds it already in Old English, in the phrase fācnes cræftig, well versed in treachery, and in compounds such as searucræftig.^[9] It became the main sense, while "skilful, clever, learned" and "skilfully made" lasted through the 15th century;^[2][9] "skilful" is now archaic or dialectal.^[8][11][7] Johnson (1755) gave only "cunning; artful; full of artifices; fraudulent; sly".^[12] In Yorkshire and Scotland a crafty person was still a skilful one in the 19th century.^[13] Recent senses are "done stealthily" (1946, chiefly British and colloquial),^[9] "in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement, looking handmade" (1922), and "relating to handicrafts" (1972).^[9]

Timeline

• c. 893 – Old English cræftig, strong, powerful (obsolete by 1300).^[3][9]
• 971 – skilful, ingenious.^[3][9]
• c. 1200 – cunning, wily, devious.^[3][2] The OED finds this sense already in Old English.^[9]
• 1922 – looking handmade, in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement.^[9]
• 1946 – done stealthily or on the sly (chiefly British).^[9]
• 1972 – relating to handicrafts.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Clever at getting what one wants, especially by deceit; cunning, wily: a crafty old fox of a politician.^[11][7][9]
2. (chiefly British, informal) Done secretly or on the sly.^[9]
3. Relating to handicrafts, or fond of making things by hand.^[9]
4. (archaic or dialect) Skilful, clever, ingenious.^[11][7][8]
5. (obsolete, Old English–1300) Strong, powerful.^[9][8]

Word family

• craftily
• craftiness
• uncrafty

Related words

• craft
• craftsman

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
11. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)