craft Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the skilled practice of a practical occupation
    trade.
    • he learned his trade as an apprentice
  2. noun a vehicle designed for navigation in or on water or air or through outer space
  3. noun people who perform a particular kind of skilled work
    trade.
    • he represented the craft of brewers
    • as they say in the trade
  4. noun skill in an occupation or trade
    craftsmanship; workmanship.
  5. noun shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception
    guile; slyness; foxiness; craftiness; wiliness; cunning.
  6. verb make by hand and with much skill
    • The artisan crafted a complicated tool

WordNet

Craft noun
Etymology
AS. crft 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.
Definitions
  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 priets 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.
Craft transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To play tricks; to practice artifice. Obs.
    You have crafted fair. Shak.

Webster 1913