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Learn the meaning, synonyms, usage, and history of the adjective sly, which can describe cleverness, deceit, mischief, or humor. See example sentences, phrases, and related words from the Merriam-Webster dictionary.
SLY definition: 1. deceiving people in a clever way in order to get what you want: 2. seeming to know secrets: 3…. Learn more.
cunning or wily: sly as a fox. Synonyms: astute, shrewd, crafty, foxy, subtle, artful. Antonyms: obvious, direct. stealthy, insidious, or secret. Synonyms: clandestine, underhand, furtive, surreptitious. playfully artful, mischievous, or roguish: sly humor. sly.
Synonyms for SLY: cunning, cute, subtle, slick, deceptive, wily, shrewd, fraudulent; Antonyms of SLY: ingenuous, guileless, artless, innocent, obvious, plain, public, simple.
- Some common synonyms of sly are artful, crafty, cunning, foxy, slick, tricky, and wily. While all these words mean "attaining or seeking to attain...
- The words artful and sly are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, artful implies indirectness in dealing and often connotes sophisticat...
- While in some cases nearly identical to sly, crafty implies cleverness and subtlety of method. // a crafty lefthander
- While the synonyms cunning and sly are close in meaning, cunning suggests the inventive use of sometimes limited intelligence in overreaching or ci...
- The synonyms foxy and sly are sometimes interchangeable, but foxy implies a shrewd and wary craftiness usually involving devious dealing. // a foxy...
- In some situations, the words slick and sly are roughly equivalent. However, slick emphasizes smoothness and guile. // slick operators selling time...
- Although the words tricky and sly have much in common, tricky is more likely to suggest shiftiness and unreliability than skill in deception and ma...
- The meanings of wily and sly largely overlap; however, wily implies skill and deception in maneuvering. // the wily fugitive escaped the posse
Sly can be an adjective meaning deceiving or secretive, or a noun meaning doing something on the sly. Learn how to use sly in different contexts with examples from various sources.
When you're sly, you're crafty, cunning, tricky, and wily. Being sly is being deceitful, though not in the worst way. If you're good at lying, you're quite sly: people who are sly are good at pulling one over on other people. Being sly helps you get away with things.
Learn the meaning, pronunciation and usage of the adjective sly, which can describe someone who acts or does something secretly or dishonestly. See examples, synonyms and idioms related to sly.
