crafty

Crafty is an adjective used to describe someone or something that uses skill and cunning to achieve a goal, often by indirect or deceptive means. The term can convey admiration for cleverness, or disapproval of sly manipulation. It derives from craft, meaning skill or art, with the suffix -y; its roots lie in Old English forms such as cræftig, historically denoting skilled or crafty.

In everyday language, crafty frequently carries a negative nuance, as in a crafty thief or a crafty scheme. It can also be used more neutrally or positively to describe resourceful problem solving or clever improvisation, as in a crafty solution.

In computing and games, Crafty is the name of a chess engine that became well known in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is noted for its accessibility and its role in the development and testing of chess algorithms, and it supported several standard interfaces used to connect chess software.

The term Crafty may appear in branding, fiction, or character names as a descriptor of traits such as the wiliest or most cunning, reflecting its broad association with cleverness and trickery.