CRAFT, a word confined in English to intellectual power, and used as a synonym of "art" (Ger. Kraft, strength, power). It also means skill or ingenuity, especially in the manual arts, hence its use in the expression "Arts and Crafts" (q.v.) ; it is thus applied to an association of workmen of a particular trade, a trade gild, and in particular to Freemasons. The word appears also in words such as "handicraft" or "craftsman." Skill applied to outwit or deceive gives the common sense of cunning or trickery, and it is this meaning which is implied in such combined words as "priestcraft," "witchcraft" and the like. A more partic ular use of the word is in the nautical sense of vessels of trans port by water ; this is probably a colloquially shortened form either of "vessels of a fisherman's, lighterman's craft," etc., or of "vessels of a heavier or lighter craft."