Craft , v. t. To play tricks; to practice artifice.
[Obs.]
You have crafted fair.
Shak.
Craft (kr&adot;ft), 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.
Hear it pronounced