A Scottish word for cunning trickery or crafty behavior, derived from the adjective 'pawky' (shrewd, dryly humorous, slyly cunning). Pawkery describes the kind of clever manipulation that is more roguish than malicious -- getting one's way through wit and indirection rather than direct confrontation. The word has a distinctly old-fashioned Scottish flavor that suits lovably sly characters perfectly. Think of it as cunning with a wink.
She got what she wanted through sheer pawkery -- never confrontational, always three steps ahead.
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(Scotland) Trickery, cunning.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
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