Shifty vs Oblique - What's the difference?
shifty | oblique | Related terms |
Having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes .
Subject to frequent changes in direction.
* 1971 , Henry Handel Richardson, Ultima Thule (page 121)
Full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.
* Charles Kingsley
Not erect or perpendicular; neither parallel to, nor at right angles from, the base; slanting; inclined.
* Cheyne
Not straightforward; indirect; obscure; hence, disingenuous; underhand; perverse; sinister.
* Drayton
* De Quincey
* Wordsworth
Not direct in descent; not following the line of father and son; collateral.
* Baker
(botany, of leaves) Having the base of the blade asymmetrical, with one side larger or extending further than the other.
To deviate from a perpendicular line; to move in an oblique direction.
* Projecting his person towards it in a line which obliqued from the bottom of his spine. - Sir. W. Scott.
(military) To march in a direction oblique to the line of the column or platoon; — formerly accomplished by oblique steps, now by direct steps, the men half-facing either to the right or left.
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Shifty is a related term of oblique.
As an adjective shifty
is having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes .As a verb oblique is
.shifty
English
Adjective
(er)- He was a shifty character in a seedy bar and I checked my wallet was still there after talking to him.
- Off he raced, shuffling his bare feet through the hot, dry, shifty sand. But it was no good: she didn't care.
- (Wright)
- Shifty and thrifty as old Greek or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps nothing he could not endure.
oblique
English
Adjective
(er)- It has a direction oblique to that of the former motion.
- The love we bear our friends Hath in it certain oblique ends.
- This mode of oblique research, when a more direct one is denied, we find to be the only one in our power.
- Then would be closed the restless, oblique eye / That looks for evil, like a treacherous spy.
- His natural affection in a direct line was strong, in an oblique but weak.
