1603 J. Florio tr. M. de Montaigne Ess. iii. i. 478 Truely they make my cunning ouercunning.

1616 T. Gainsford Rich Cabinet f. 80 Knauery is an ouercunning of wit and craft, which hath twenty tricks to cozen others.

1640 W. Habington Hist. Edward IV 31 This I believe an overcunning in conjecture.

1676 G. Etherege Man of Mode iv. ii. 73 Women of her temper betray themselves by Their over cunning.

1852 Littell's Living Age 12 June 507 It is curious to see how many points he has in common with the insane; what over-cunning, what irritable restlessness.

1604 J. Marston Malcontent To Rdr. sig. A3^v Yet in despight of my indevors, I vnderstand, some have bin most vnadvisedly over-cunning in mis-interpreting me.

1734 T. Cooke Self-tormentor v. i. 164 I must confess I am not over cunning or sagacious.

1745 E. Haywood Female Spectator II. x. 199 I must confess these over-cunning People are, of all others, most my Aversion.

1845 T. B. Thorpe in W. T. Porter Big Bear of Arkansas 24 Did the varmints grow over-cunning by being fooled with by green-horn hunters, and by this means get troublesome, they send for me as a matter of course.

1859 J. S. Knowles Virginius ii. iv. 76 You are over-cunning workmen, too—You put your materials so firmly together, there's no such thing as taking them asunder!

1890 Cent. Mag. Apr. 912/1 Rack looked sidewise at his master, with a suspicious and over-cunning leer in his milky old eyes.

1962 Shakespeare Q. 13 460 The various and sometimes contradictory meanings of the actual lines of a play, the literary critic can tease out for himself—indeed he is often over-cunning in this respect.

1801 Earl of Malmesbury Diaries & Corr. IV. 5 Loughborough and Auckland appear to have over-cunning'd the business.