1. Clever; sharp; shrewd; The trick he played on his sister was cute and effective, but he could only do it once.
2. Pretty, attractive; descriptive of a pleasing and youthful appearance: The doll that Lynn got for Christmas was so cute with big blue eyes, a large head with golden locks of hair, and the doll looked so innocent and fragile!
3. Etymology: cute was originally a shortened form of acute in the sense of being "keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd".

It is considered likely that cute came to be used as a term of praise, or approval, for things that demonstrated "acuteness", and so it went on to develop its own sense of being "attractive" and "fetching".