WILY (wilier, wiliest)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

Irregular inflected forms: wilier    , wiliest   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wily mean? 

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

1. marked by skill in deception

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

 Dictionary entry details 

• WILY (adjective)

Comparative: wilier   
Superlative: wiliest   

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:

wile (the use of tricks to deceive someone (usually to extract money from them))

wiliness (shrewdness as demonstrated by being skilled in deception)

 Context examples 

I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

But he was too wily for that.

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

And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Wily and bold, he and his companion threw their pursuer off their track by entering a lodging-house in Edmonton Street and leaving by the back-gate into Curzon Square.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In his new book launched today (November 26) titled Ea’s Duplicity in the Gilgamesh Flood story, he explores the tricks of ‘wily Ea’, who is also known as the ‘crafty god’ and the ‘trickster god’.

(‘Trickster god’ used fake news in Babylonian Noah story, University of Cambridge)

Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

His friend and secretary, Mr. Lucas, is undoubtedly a foreigner, chocolate brown, wily, suave, and catlike, with a poisonous gentleness of speech.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)