sly
Adjective Satellite
- marked by skill in deception
- "sly as a fox"
Adj
- Artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily.
- Dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice
- Done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy; subtle
- Light or delicate; slight; thin.
Adv
- Slyly.
Adjective
- Clever and cunning, especially in a deceitful or evasive way.
Examples
- a sly trick
- A sly Words With Friends player might hide a high-scoring word on an obscure part of the board.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English sly, sley, sleigh, sleiȝ, from Old Norse slǿgr (“sly, cunning”, literally “capable of hitting or striking”), from Proto-Germanic *slōgiz (“lively, agile, cunning, sly, striking”), from Proto-Indo-European *slak- (“to hit, throw”). Cognate with Icelandic slægur (“crafty, sly”), Norwegian Nynorsk sløg (“sly”). Related to sleight, slay. In all likelihood, however, unrelated with Saterland Frisian slau (“sly, crafty”), Dutch sluw (“sly, cunning”), Low German slu (“sly, cunning”), German schlau (“clever, crafty”). Doublet of sleight and slöjd
Synonyms
crafty, cunning, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, tricksy, tricky, wily, artful, cautious, knowing, nimble, sharp, shifty, shrewd, skillful, slim, sly as a fox
Scrabble Score: 6
sly: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordsly: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
sly: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary