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Canny vs Ranny - What's the difference?

canny | ranny |

As an adjective canny

is careful, prudent, cautious.

As a noun ranny is

(obsolete|outside|dialects) a shrew (in the sense of the mouselike animal).

canny

English

Adjective

(er)
  • Careful, prudent, cautious.
    • (Ramsay)
  • Knowing, shrewd, astute.
    • (Sir Walter Scott)
  • Frugal, thrifty.
  • (Scotland, Northumbria) Pleasant, fair.
    • She's a canny lass hor like!
  • * 1783 , (Robert Burns), "Green Grow the Rashes O", Songs and Ballads
    • But gie me a cannie hour at e'en,
    My arms about my dearie O;
    An' warl'y cares, an' warl'y men,
    Mae a' gae tapsalteerie O!
  • (Northumbria) Very or much.
    • That's a canny big horse, man!

    Derived terms

    * cannily * canniness

    Related terms

    * uncanny (Note: In common modern usage, "canny" and "uncanny" are no longer antonyms.)

    References

    * * * *

    Anagrams

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    ranny

    English

    Noun

    (rannies)
  • (obsolete, outside, dialects) A shrew (in the sense of the mouselike animal).
  • * 1646 , Sir Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica , XVIII:
    • instead of a caligation or dimness, we conclude a cecity or blindness. Which hath been frequently inferred concerning other Animals, so some affirm the Water-Rat is blind, so Sammonicus'' and ''Nicander do call the Mus-Araneus, the shrew or Ranny , blind [...].

    Anagrams

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