Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Craft

Craft (krȧft), n. [AS. cræft strength, skill, art, cunning; akin to OS., G., Sw., & Dan. kraft strength, D. kracht, Icel. kraptr; perh. originally, a drawing together, stretching, from the root of E. cramp.] 1. Strength; might; secret power. [Obs.] Chaucer.

2. Art or skill; dexterity in particular manual employment; hence, the occupation or employment itself; manual art; a trade.

Ye know that by this craft we have our wealth. Acts xix. 25.

A poem is the work of the poet; poesy is his skill or craft of making. B. Jonson.

Since the birth of time, throughout all ages and nations, Has the craft of the smith been held in repute. Longfellow.

3. Those engaged in any trade, taken collectively; a guild; as, the craft of ironmongers.

The control of trade passed from the merchant guilds to the new craft guilds. J. R. Green.

4. Cunning, art, or skill, in a bad sense, or applied to bad purposes; artifice; guile; skill or dexterity employed to effect purposes by deceit or shrewd devices.

You have that crooked wisdom which is called craft. Hobbes.

The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. Mark xiv. 1.

5. (Naut.) A vessel; vessels of any kind; — generally used in a collective sense.

The evolutions of the numerous tiny craft moving over the lake. Prof. Wilson.

Small crafts, small vessels, as sloops, schooners, ets.

Craft, v. t. To play tricks; to practice artifice. [Obs.]

You have crafted fair. Shak.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.