Shifty vs Slick - What's the difference?
shifty | slick |
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
Slippery due to a covering of liquid; often used to describe appearances.
Appearing expensive or sophisticated.
Superficially convincing but actually untrustworthy.
* 2014 , Ian Black, "
Clever, making an apparently hard task easy; often used sarcastically.
Extraordinarily great or special.
sleek; smooth
* Chapman
A covering of liquid, particularly oil.
Someone who is clever and untrustworthy.
A tool used to make something smooth or even.
(sports, automotive) A tire with a smooth surface instead of a tread pattern, often used in auto racing.
A helicopter.
(printing) A camera-ready image to be used by a printer. The "slick" is photographed to produce a negative image which is then used to burn a positive offset plate or other printing device.
A wide paring chisel used in joinery.
To make slick
* {{quote-news,
year=2009,
date=January 14,
author=Melissa Clark,
title=Green, Gold and Pink: Fast, Easy and Delicious,
url=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/dining/14appe.html,
work=New York Times, passage=So I slicked the broccoli with oil and seasonings and set it to roast.}}
As an adjective shifty
is having the appearance of someone dishonest, criminal or unreliable; such as someone with shifty eyes .As a proper noun slick is
a term of address, generally applied to males, possibly including strangers, implying that the person addressed is slick in the sense of "sophisticated", but often used sarcastically.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.
slick
English
Adjective
(er)- This rain is making the roads slick .
- The top coating of lacquer gives this finish a slick look.
- They read all kinds of slick magazines.
- That new sales rep is slick . Be sure to read the fine print before you buy anything.
Courts kept busy as Jordan works to crush support for Isis", The Guardian , 27 November 2014:
- The threat the most radical of them pose is evidently far greater at home than abroad: in one characteristically slick and chilling Isis video – entitled “a message to the Jordanian tyrant” – a smiling, long-haired young man in black pats the explosive belt round his waist as he burns his passport and his fellow fighters praise the memory of Zarqawi, who was killed in Iraq in 2006.
- Our new process for extracting needles from haystacks is extremely slick .
- That was a slick move, locking your keys in the car.
- That is one slick bicycle: it has all sorts of features!
- Both slick and dainty.
Noun
(en noun)- Careful in turn three — there's an oil slick on the road.
- The oil slick has now spread to cover the entire bay, critically endangering the sea life.
- You'll go much faster if you put on slicks .
- The project was delayed because the slick had not been delivered to the printer.
Synonyms
* (tyre) slick tire, slick tyreVerb
(en verb)- The surface had been slicked .