Devious vs Insidious - What's the difference?
devious | insidious |
Deviating; not straightforward or honest, not frank; not standard.
* 1839 , Frederick Marryat, The Phantom Ship
Producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.
* 1847 , George Lippard, The Quaker City: or, The monks of Monk-Hall
* 1997 , Matthew Wood, The book of herbal wisdom: using plants as medicine
* 2007 , Sharon Weinstein, Ada Lawrence Plumer, Principles and practice of intravenous therapy
Intending to entrap; alluring but harmful.
* Nathaniel Hawthorne
* 1948 , D.V. Chitaley (editor or publisher), All India Reporter , volume 3, page 341:
* 1969 , Dorothy Brewster, John Angus Burrell, Dead reckonings in fiction
* 2005 , Anita Desai, Voices in the City , page 189:
* 2007 , Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool , page 171:
(nonstandard) Treacherous.
* 1858 , Phineas Camp Headley, The life of the Empress Josephine: first wife of Napoleon
* 1912 , Ralph Straus, The prison without a wall
As adjectives the difference between devious and insidious
is that devious is deviating; not straightforward or honest, not frank; not standard while insidious is producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.devious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Keeping close in to the shore, they discovered, after two hours run, a fresh stream which burst in a cascade from the mountains, and swept its devious course through the jungle, until it poured its tribute into the waters of the Strait.
insidious
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Strong and vigorous man as he looks, Livingstone has been for years the victim of a secret and insidious disease.
- At some point in time they may become the source of an insidious cancer.
- The nurse always must be alert to signs of slow leak or insidious infiltration.
- The insidious whisper of the bad angel.
- All these facts clearly appear to me now to establish that the sanctioned scheme was a part of a bigger and […] more insidious scheme which was to hoodwink the creditors and to firmly establish and consolidate the position […]
- The atmosphere of this insidious city comes out to meet him the moment he touches the European shore; for in London he meets Maria Gostrey just over from France.
- This seemed to her the worst defilement into which this insidious city had cheated her and in her agitation, she nearly ran into the latrine, […]
- This is the insidious way sports entrap you: you follow a player, which commits you to his team. You begin to acquire scraps of utterly useless information about teammates, managers, owners, trainers, agents, lawyers.
- Hansel and Gretel were lured by the witch’s insidious gingerbread house.
- But with whom do you contract that alliance? With the natural enemy of France — that insidious house of Austria — which detests our country from feeling, system, and necessity.
- ‘Believe me,’ he shouted, ‘these insidious folk talk dangerous nonsense. I hear they are spouting out their ridiculous platitudes not five miles from this park in which we are standing…’
- The battle was lost due to the actions of insidious defectors.