FOXY (foxier, foxiest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: foxier    , foxiest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does foxy mean? 

• FOXY (adjective)
  The adjective FOXY has 1 sense:

1. marked by skill in deception

  Familiarity information: FOXY used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FOXY (adjective)

Comparative: foxier   
Superlative: foxiest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Marked by skill in deception

Synonyms:

crafty; cunning; dodgy; foxy; guileful; knavish; slick; sly; tricksy; tricky; wily

Context example:

a wily old attorney

Similar:

artful (marked by skill in achieving a desired end especially with cunning or craft)

Derivation:

fox (a shifty deceptive person)

foxiness (shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception)

 Context examples 

Holmes had already wired to Forbes, and we found him waiting to receive us—a small, foxy man with a sharp but by no means amiable expression.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The other, clad in a dirty russet suit with a long sweeping doublet, had a cunning, foxy face with keen, twinkling eyes and a peaky beard.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In whatever capacity you ask after my employer, I beg, without offence to you, to limit my reply to this—that whatever his state of health may be, his appearance is foxy: not to say diabolical.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When I think of Mortimer Tregennis, with the foxy face and the small shrewd, beady eyes behind the spectacles, he is not a man whom I should judge to be of a particularly forgiving disposition.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)