A Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, listener notes that the word cunning is sometimes used to describe a cute baby. In the 14th century, this adjective had to do with the idea of knowing, and eventually also acquired the meaning of quaint or charming. The word cute itself followed a somewhat similar path, deriving from acute, meaning sharp or knowledgeable. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Cunnin Cute”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Billy from Chilmark, Massachusetts.
Hi, Billy. Welcome to the show. What can we do for you?
I have a word that I’ve heard only in New England. I looked it up in the OED and I couldn’t find it there. And the word is pronounced cunning. And I’ve heard some people say cunning, but I’ve been informed that it’s pronounced cunning. And it refers to a cute baby or, you know, something that’s very pretty or cute. And I wonder if you could help me out to figure that one out.
Yeah, it’s weird. The word cunning itself goes back to the 14th century, and it comes from a root that means to know. You know, somebody who’s cunning is very knowledgeable, clever, that kind of thing. And it wasn’t until the mid-19th century that we see a particular usage of it pop up to mean in the U.S. something that’s cute or dainty or just…
Or quaint.
Yeah, quaint. Intricate. And pretty. And it’s really interesting that the word cute itself has a sort of similar development like that. The word cute, you know, we think of a cute little baby today, but it goes back to acute, which means sharp or knowledgeable, and that went through that change as well.
So it’s very weird. We get questions about the word cunning and cunning for children from time to time in our email, and it’s usually from somebody in the Northeast. So you may be right. It is a regional thing. You may be right about that. I don’t have data on that. What I know about it is the same, Martha. And a couple hundred years of history, right? And the roots go back to dialects of England, right? Different kind of settlement patterns brought that word with them to the northeast and not to the other parts of the United States.
Yeah, so that would make sense. Yeah, so it’s interesting that the town I live in was settled by the English.
There we go.
There you go, yeah. Thanks for your call, Billy. Really appreciate it.
Well, thank you very much. Take care.
Thanks, Billy. Take care.
Bye-bye.
I was particularly interested in the etymology because you said that no and cunning come from the same root. And so what we’re talking about is before no, before that K went silent. Because we used to pronounce the K in English. It would have been more like cano, right?
Yes.
Or something similar. And then we lost the K sound. But it’s still the same word. They’re both from the same root.
Right.
Right. That’s a very good point.
Yeah.
And a very, very, very old word.
Right. What are we talking? 1,500 years? Even more? Back to Old Norse. How’s your Old Norse, Martha?
Yeah.
Email words@waywordradio.org.
Yes, most likely related to old norse. There are clues in the modern nordic languages. The infinitive “to know (as in to know how to do something)” is “att kunna” in Swedish. The adjective form is kunnig, which means capable, knowledgeable, clever.