wily

See also: wiły

English

Etymology

From Middle English wily, wiley, wyly. By surface analysis, wil(e) +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪ.li/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪli
• Homophones: Wiley, Wylie, Wylye
• Hyphenation: wi‧ly

Adjective

wily (comparative wilier or more wily, superlative wiliest or most wily)

1. Sly, cunning, full of tricks.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:wily

   Horatio's new girlfriend is a wily coquette, and poor Horatio is too smitten to see it.

   • 1996 October 6, William Hathaway, “PARASITE LINKS MEN IN DARING VENTURE”, in Hartford Courant‎^[1], archived from the original on 28 November 2020:

     Of all the medical monsters Peter Hotez could have set out to slay, the Yale University researcher could not have chosen a more wily and obscure villain than the hookworm.

Derived terms

• wilily
• wiliness
• wily beguily

Translations

sly, cunning

• Bulgarian: хитър (bg) (hitǎr), лукав (bg) (lukav)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 狡猾 (zh) (jiǎohuá)

• Czech: prohnaný
• Danish: snu (da)
• Dutch: gewiekst (nl), snood (nl)
• Finnish: ovela (fi), viekas (fi), juonikas (fi), kiero (fi), luihu (fi), kavala (fi)
• French: rusé (fr), perfide (fr), fourbe (fr)
• Galician: astuto (gl) m
• German: schlau (de), listig (de), gerissen (de)
• Greek: πανούργος (el) m (panoúrgos), πονηρός (el) m (ponirós)

  Ancient Greek: κίδαφος (kídaphos)

• Hungarian: ravasz (hu)
• Italian: furbo (it), sornione (it) m, subdolo (it)
• Japanese: 狡猾な (ja) (こうかつな, kōkatsu na), 狡い (ja) (ずるい, zurui)
• Korean: 교활한 (ko) (gyohwal-han)
• Latin: vafer, versūtus, dolōsus
• Māori: hangahangarau
• Occitan: ganèl, fals (oc), enganaire (oc)
• Plautdietsch: schlau
• Polish: chytry (pl), przebiegły (pl), sprytny (pl)
• Portuguese: ladino (pt), matreiro (pt), finório (pt)
• Russian: хи́трый (ru) (xítryj), лука́вый (ru) (lukávyj), проны́рливый (ru) (pronýrlivyj), изворо́тливый (ru) (izvorótlivyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: seòlta, carach, seanacach
• Slovak: prefíkaný (sk)
• Spanish: astuto (es), listo (es), pillo (es)
• Swedish: lömsk (sv), slug (sv), illistig (sv)
• Turkish:

  Ottoman Turkish: قورناز (kurnaz), آصمق (asmak)