What's the difference between canny and uncanny?

Canny


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Cannei

Example Sentences:

  • (1) That “social enterprise” is just a figleaf, which canny, profit-driven companies can manipulate (Emma Harrison, founder of A4e, famously used to call it a “social purpose company” before the Advertising Standards Authority, of all people, put a stop to it ).
  • (2) It's this canny media awareness that has made obscure Kafranbel one of the unlikely focal points of the revolution.
  • (3) Some gifted and canny writers have made a mint by appealing to teenagers’ sense of anguish and victimhood, the notion that they are forever embattled and persecuted by a rotten world run by authoritarian bozos.
  • (4) However, even if they did tune in for that reason, the quarter-hour breakdown suggests viewers stayed with the debate – a canny bit of scheduling by the broadcaster.
  • (5) But the paper was also canny enough to say the school would be run by evangelical Christian sponsors."
  • (6) Adopted by studio owner Chris Moon and manager Owen Husney, he began plotting his route to a record deal, cultivating a canny air of mystique while playing up to an X-rated image he'd developed after an early immersion in pornography.
  • (7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Route planners have been canny in their research, judging by the reaction from Mike Herrieven who has run Mere village stores in a wooden cabin at Hoo Green for 20 years, but doesn't expect to last another five.
  • (8) Such gestures reveal a canny politician with a carefully cultivated folksy style.
  • (9) But with Asda, Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Ocado and Morrisons vying for our custom, canny shoppers can take advantage of the competition and shave pounds off delivery costs – and even demand free delivery in return for loyalty.
  • (10) These lands once taught Americans what it meant to be independent, stubborn and canny.
  • (11) "The chasm in price between a home inside the M25 and one in the country is at last no longer growing but canny buyers are seeing this and far more inquiries I receive are now from people wanting to cash in on the seemingly ludicrous value of their shoebox of a home and snap up a slice of country living."
  • (12) Her new book, Vagina, is attracting a lot of attention, not least for the title, a canny piece of marketing that she didn't hesitate to use, she says, "because that word is either so taboo or surrounded with negative connotations or draped in shame or medicalised , it's really important to take it back".
  • (13) It was one of those canny-to-the-point-of-irritating references the Old Etonian used to specialise in; a flash of his real-world accreditation.
  • (14) Cameron would have to prove he was being politically canny, inviting Lib Dems into areas that are most likely to explode.
  • (15) He’s also one of the first players to emerge out of the league to become one of its coaches, and his and general manager Garth Lagerwey’s canny use of the draft may well reflect his own experience as a player.
  • (16) It stands as a testament to the boom years of Gaza’s smuggling business with Egypt, when a canny tunnel operator could get rich transporting anything from cars to cattle and household goods.
  • (17) But the Conservatives don’t see what’s happened to their dominance.” Crosby’s British admirers make much of the canny anti-Livingstone campaigns he orchestrated for Boris Johnson in left-leaning London in 2008 and 2012.
  • (18) She had also run a canny campaign in which she toted a rifle and went hunting, but also demonstrated a tenderness towards disadvantaged children.
  • (19) No wonder some canny infants like to play with train sets.
  • (20) One minute later Soldado dragged a shot wide from the edge of the area after being brilliantly set up by Paulinho who, until he was forced off by injury in the second half, was outstanding in midfield, bewildering opponents and delighting the home supporters with canny flicks and festive tricks.

Uncanny


Definition:

  • (a.) Not canny; unsafe; strange; weird; ghostly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Hamilton said it was uncanny to find themselves in another desperate emergency situation almost exactly one year on.
  • (2) Many claims made against them echo with uncanny precision those once made against Jews and Catholics.
  • (3) Here, too, Capote displayed uncanny journalistic skills, capturing even the most languid and enigmatic of subjects – Brando in his pomp – and eliciting the kinds of confidences that left the actor reflecting ruefully on his "unutterable foolishness".
  • (4) Not only were all the paraphernalia and substances depicted with uncanny accuracy rare on television but the reactions of the drugged executives were also utterly credible.
  • (5) The English riots were described as a tidal wave of copycat disorder that swept across towns and cities with uncanny repetition.
  • (6) As a portrait of modern society, it is startlingly astute – a scene with two schoolgirls arguing at a bus stop is uncanny in its depiction of south London slang, and speech mannerisms, and all the more notable because this is so rarely done accurately and with empathy.
  • (7) "But am I alone in thinking that David Moyes is beginning to bear an uncanny resemblance to Frank Spencer?"
  • (8) Although the soloists change, the basic orchestration continues creating an uncanny sense of déjà entendu.
  • (9) GP Sounders stuck in the long grass There’s something uncanny about watching games this year at CenturyLink Field, replete with freshly laid field turf of the variety Portland Timbers also use (though you suspect that wasn’t considered as a particularly attractive selling point by the Sounders hierarchy).
  • (10) Resulting from old cleaning ceremonies and preventing or treating uncanny effects in children, it was been usual to lick forehead of newborn and children crosswise.
  • (11) Of course the Sunday People couldn't help investigate some of these claims and took "The Test in Bucharest" – they managed to find "a dead ringer for Pippa" and a young woman with "an uncanny likeness to Kate", both of whom had "excellent English".
  • (12) Bacillus Calmette-Guérin has demonstrated an uncanny capacity for effectiveness as therapy for human diseases.
  • (13) But while he has shown an uncanny ability to be flexible – in recent weeks he has softened his rhetoric dramatically – few believe he will be able to change enough to satisfy creditors when debt-stricken Athens re-engages in gruelling negotiations to stay afloat.
  • (14) They call it the “uncanny valley” – the point at which humans become uneasy at a robot’s humanness.
  • (15) Tom Watson is a formidable political operator with an uncanny knack for being at the centre of Labour party dramas.
  • (16) When it was opened more than a century ago, however, the Chhatrapati Shivaji railway terminus, which bears an uncanny resemblance to London's St Pancras, was the T2 of its time.
  • (17) Some way further down the list is Woodford Investment Management, run by Neil Woodford, a figure held in awe in London for his uncanny ability to make money.
  • (18) Blair has long been fascinated by the "uncanny" parallels between New Labour and the Liberal Party of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith (his summer reading in 1996, during a holiday at Geoffrey Robinson's Tuscan villa, was George Dangerfield's classic The Strange Death of Liberal England).
  • (19) Although his playing days with Chelsea and Tottenham are long over, the uncanny knack of undoing Newcastle has clearly survived Poyet's transition from pitch to technical area undiminished.
  • (20) Reading between the lines, in the context of the Spurs' almost uncanny teamwork in these last two games, what James is really telling his team-mates is that they have to be more like the Spurs.