sneakery

English

Etymology 1

sneak +‎ -ery

Noun

sneakery (uncountable)

1. Stealth; the practice of sneaking
   • 1859, The Yale Literary Magazine - Volume 25 - Page 15‎^[1]:

     But time would fail to trace, in individual cases, the sneakery of History.

   • 1935, Lawhead, Mary, Shephard, Flola L., John Rood, Manuscript‎^[2], The Lawhead Press:

     You fight fire with fire you know and so it is in this case fighting sneakery with sneakery.

   • 2013, Robert P. Wills, Nikki Taylor, Tales From A Second Hand Wand Shoppe‎^[3]:

     We sneak into town using Dwarfish sneakery so no one sees us.

Adjective

sneakery (comparative more sneakery, superlative most sneakery)

1. (dialect) Sneaky.
   • 1901, St. Nicholas: A Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls:

     Old-people jokes are sin, and tying cats' tails, and unsetting the hens, and all kind of sneakery things — " The little girl hesitated a moment, and then she added : " It seems to me, mama, that a great many sins come into people's heads and try to get committed.

   • 1946, Richard Burke, The Frightened Pigeon - Volume 299, page 83:

     Vy she snoop and peer all the time after those poor sneakery Lanchester girls?

   • 2004, Richard Henry, Rick Henry, Anthony O. Tyler, The Blueline Anthology, page 231:

     He could not break her surface to verify anything, and he found himself wishing some mild violence on her, a nick of the jig in her perfect calf, a sneakery slip, a bruised shin. Something to break the surface, just ding it a little.

Etymology 2

sneaker +‎ -y

Adjective

sneakery (comparative more sneakery, superlative most sneakery)

1. Involving or characteristic of sneakers.
   • 1979, Alex Shoumatoff, Westchester, Portrait of a County, page 69:

     People remember her descending on the Anne Beauty Salon in Mount Kisco to have her hair washed — dressed in a long black skirt that was on crooked and black stockings that had fallen down and flat sneakery kind of shoes and a straw pork-pie hat pushed back on her head under which the white hair shot out in every direction.

   • 1994, Linda Villarosa, Body & Soul:

     Masked men and women, mainly white, swish past on sneakery soles.

   • 1995, Evan Dara, The lost scrapbook, page 213:

     I drifted out into the building's barren hallways and looked around; a few folks were buzzing about, entirely oblivious to me, and I waited for a while pretending not to be looking at any of them; then I began enjoying the old schoolhouse smell — dusty, and vaguely sneakery — and the sight of the half-windowed doors extending down the scuffed hall, and all the Scotch-tape residue on the yellowish walls, before I noticed that there seemed to be a brighter room towards the front of the building; so I wandered in that direction.

   • 1999, Mademoiselle: The Magazine for the Smart Young Woman:

     This spring, ' Ann Demeulemeester has plain, sneakery shoes; so does Hermes: they were shown on the runway with everything from cashmere to black leather.

Anagrams

• Kearsney