Definitions of Craft

Craft
noun
1. skill or ability, especially in handiwork.
2. skill in deception and trickery; guile; cunning.
3. an occupation or trade requiring special skill, especially manual dexterity.
4. a) the members of such a trade, regarded collectively.
b) (as modifier): a craft guild.
5. a single vessel, aircraft, or spacecraft.
6. (functioning as plural) ships, boats, aircraft, or spacecraft collectively.
7. verb (transitive) to make or fashion with skill, especially by hand.

[Old English cræft skill, strength; related to Old Norse kraptr power, skill, Old High German kraft].

‘craft’ 2000, in Collins English Dictionary, Collins, London, United Kingdom, viewed 28 July 2010,

Craft
noun
1 a. a skill, trade or occupation, especially one requiring the use of the hands;
(b) in compounds needlecraft..
2. the members of a trade, as a body.
3. skilled ability.
4. cunning.
5. often in compounds a boat or ship, or an air or space vehicle spacecraft aircraft.
plural noun often in compounds boats, ships, air or space vehicles collectively.
verb (crafted, crafting) to make something skilfully.

[Anglo-Saxon cræft strength.]

‘craft’ 2001, in Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, Chambers Harrap, London, United Kingdom, viewed 28 July 2010,


Craft
noun
1.Natural or acquired facility in a specific activity: ability, adeptness, art, command, expertise, expertness, knack, mastery, proficiency, skill, technique. Informal: know-how. See ability, knowledge
2.Deceitful cleverness: art, artfulness, artifice, craftiness, cunning, foxiness, guile, slyness, wiliness. See honest, means
3.Lack of straightforwardness and honesty in action: chicanery, craftiness, deviousness, dishonesty, indirection, shadiness, shiftiness, slyness, sneakiness, trickery, trickiness, underhandedness. See honest
4.Activity pursued as a livelihood: art, business, calling, career, employment, job, line, métier, occupation, profession, pursuit, trade, vocation, work. Slang: racket. Archaic: employ. See action

‘craft’ 2003, in Roget's II The New Thesaurus, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA, USA, viewed 28 July 2010,


Craft
from Old English cræft strength, skill. The basic meaning of craft, common to most Germanic languages, is ‘strength’. In English it also acquired, as early as the ninth cent., the sense ‘skill, cleverness’. In reference to manual dexterity, this sense has retained a positive force; but in reference to mental agility, which may be viewed with suspicion or envy, it gradually became derogatory and by the 13th cent. often signified guile or fraud. The derivative adjective crafty developed in the same way; today it is used only in a negative sense.

‘craft1’ 2007, in The Penguin English Dictionary, Penguin, London, United Kingdom, viewed 28 July 2010,