Who will take the trophy in compete vs. vie? Compete is commonly used to talk about people participating in an organized competitive event (athletes competing in Tokyo for Olympic gold) or businesses trying to gain the same share of the market (cable channels competing for the 18-35 demographic). Vie frequently occurs outside these more structured contexts, as with vie for control or vie for power, or vie for a seat, a space, or a spot. Compete can almost always substitute for vie, but not vice versa, in part because vie is always followed by a preposition and an indirect object—vie for, vie with. When compete appears in one of these phrases, vie is almost always a solid alternative: The boys competed/vied for their father's attention.

Someone who is dishonest cannot be trusted; they may be disposed to lie, cheat, or steal. This descriptor is commonly applied to people or to their misleading words. The synonym underhanded emphasizes secrecy and dishonor in one’s actions. If a politician uses underhanded tactics to discredit an opponent in a campaign, they did unscrupulous, unethical, or possibly even illegal things in secret to sully their opponent’s reputation. Slyness, or the crafty covering of one's tracks, is a key component of this term; wherever there are underhanded dealings, tactics, or tricks being employed, you can be sure there’s a fair amount of sneaky maneuvering afoot.

To impede is to make difficult the movement or progress of something, such as an investigation, by interfering with its proper functioning. To stymie is to hinder, block, or thwart something or someone. The vexing nature of the word comes into greater focus when we look at its origins: Before people and projects were being stymied in boardrooms and halls of government, golfers were being stymied on the putting green. A stymie, used as a noun, is an instance of a ball’s lying on a direct line between the cup and the ball of an opponent about to putt. It didn’t take long before English speakers were using the term as a verb to talk about this irksome scenario, and the figurative extension (how the word is most commonly used today) emerged shortly after.