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Definitions

sly

[slahy] / slaɪ /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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The Wachtell report also does a sly job of establishing what we all kind of knew: these Leonard deals never made much sense.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026

You have to be clever, not sly, in how you deal with it.

From BBC ● May 8, 2026

In the live-wire 2015 comedy-drama “Dope” and as the voice of Miles Morales in the “Spider-Verse” films, Moore proved himself a sly, likable star with flirty charm.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2026

“The long and winding road is more than a song,” he sings, with a sly wink to his Beatles past.

From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2026

Sometimes it took many years to pay the roora; sometimes—there were several sly looks—it took no time at all.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

But I began to suspect he was up to something slier in the course of this 800-plus-page doorstopper.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2021

Julia understands digital media—and print media, for that matter—as well as anyone I’ve ever met, and every day she made the Slate we were editing together slier and fresher and more fun.

From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2018

It’s only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

He had a Sompnour ready to his hand, A slier boy was none in Engleland; For subtlely he had his espiaille,* *espionage That taught him well where it might aught avail.

From The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems by D. Laing Purves

The hungry thousands that crowded and pushed at Willard's thought him one of them, only deeper and slier.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861 by Various

Considering the series’ tone and genre, one may expect the conversion to shift into the age-old “Die Hard” debate – but series creator Joe Barton is slyer than that.

From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2024

And in one of the film’s slyer jokes, the hip-hop song “White Boy Summer” by their son Chet Hanks is used to personify a certain kind of clueless obliviousness in others.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2022

And other late-night hosts also frankly and straightforwardly used the word on Monday, which was refreshing—though some were slyer about its usage than others.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2019

But given their lines, it’s impossible for them not to register as grotesquely obtuse variations on the limousine-liberal guilt junkies from the slyer, fuller plays of Wallace Shawn.

From New York Times ● Oct. 15, 2018

He laughs again, and the nasty laugh admits I’m slyer than he guessed.

From "Grendel" by John Gardner

One of the last performances I saw in 2017 was one of the sliest: Billy Crudup in David Cale’s “Harry Clarke” at New York’s Vineyard Theatre.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2018

"Will my learned friend," said Mr. P —— with one of his sliest sneers, "inform us what motive the defendant could possibly have to keep back a witness so necessary to him?"

From The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney by Samuel Warren

The sliest old thief that you ever did see; Hi, ho, see the chips fly!

From The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo) Burgess

Where The White Lotus ends up, is, in some ways, the slyest joke of all.

From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2021

It is the play’s slyest and richest joke that it takes a commoner, with great hair and a keen sartorial sense, to explain what royalty means today.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2015

Peter Debruge in Variety noted "of all the satirists working in cinema today, Östlund displays perhaps the slyest streak of dark humor."

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2014

Where the network’s “True Detective” occasionally broke its dolefulness with the slyest, philosophically artful wink at an audience riveted by its mystery, “The Leftovers” grafts more unhappiness onto unhappiness.

From Washington Post

He whispered with slyest confidence, although no one was within hearing: “You keep that money a little while longer,” he whispered.

From The Debtor A Novel by William Dodge Stevens




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