cunning

From Latin cunning, cunning is the cunning quality. A clever person is a person skilled in deceiving or avoiding a cheated, or that it has the capacity to achieve an end in an artificial way. Cunning can also be a artifice or a scheme.

For example: "The deputy showed his astuteness in not answering the most complex questions asked by journalists", "They tried to scam Don Jacinto, but he had the astuteness to discover the lie in time", "The cleverness of the captain to recover balls in the last quarter of the game was decisive in the result".

Cunning is not usually directly associated with intelligence or academic training, but is understood as the skill of a person to act in a certain way. One who is cunning can warn when he is about to be a victim of a trap or he can develop a ruse himself to deceive others.

Two people knock on the door of a woman's house and inform her that they are workers of the electricity and then they ask you to allow them to check the installation. The astute woman informs them that she will call the company to confirm what they say. Faced with this response, the alleged workers leave: they were thieves who tried to deceive the owner of the house.

Cunning can also appear in a sports player who knows how to interpret the plays or the development of the matches to anticipate the competitors. A soccer forward who always manages to place himself in the proper position of the countryside to capture rebounds in the opponent's area and score goals is a cunning player.

The concept of cunning is very present in everyday speech, in situations that occur every day, but also in literature, as evidenced by the immense amount of famous phrases and quotes from authors of all times; Let's see some of them below: «No person of humble state has ever won great can only by force, but only by cunning », Niccolo Machiavelli; "The great cunning of some often consists in the stupidity of others", Hugues-Bernard Maret; "Cunning is often annoying like a lamp in a bedroom", Ludwig Börne.

In popular language, cats are often associated with cunning, probably because of how attentive they always seem to be to everyone. phenomena that surround them, as if they wanted to anticipate any unforeseen event so that the surprise does not leave them in a bad way and they can react with a good decision.

The cunning is based precisely on a great knowledge of the environment; However, this does not mean that it can be acquired on a conscious level, since, as discussed in previous paragraphs, people are born astute. To detect a lie or an attempted scam, it is necessary to have a certain experience in dealing with others, to know how to identify certain gestures and inflections of the voice, for example, that human beings usually use when they are not sincere.

We all have the possibility to learn to sharpen our senses to reduce the chances of falling into a trap, but cunning is part of the personality, so it conditions those who possess it to constantly study others, even if they are not aware of it.

When cunning is used to cause harm to another person, it can be considered a synonym for malice, mischief, wickedness or evil. As with intelligence, it is a potential It can be used for any purpose, both altruistic and selfish, constructive or destructive.