Sly vs Slippery - What's the difference?
sly | slippery |
Artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily.
Dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble; skillful; cautious; shrewd; knowing; — in a good sense.
Done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy; subtle; as, a sly trick.
Light or delicate; slight; thin.
Slyly.
Of a surface, having low friction, often due to being covered in a non-viscous liquid, and therefore hard to grip, hard to stand on without falling, etc.
(figuratively, by extension) Evasive; difficult to pin down.
(obsolete) Liable to slip; not standing firm.
* 1602 , , III. iii. 84:
unstable; changeable; inconstant
* Denham
(obsolete) wanton; unchaste; loose in morals
* 1610 , , I. ii. 273:
Slippery is a synonym of sly.
As adjectives the difference between sly and slippery
is that sly is artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily while slippery is of a surface, having low friction, often due to being covered in a non-viscous liquid, and therefore hard to grip, hard to stand on without falling, etc.As an adverb sly
is slyly.sly
English
(Webster 1913)Alternative forms
* (l) (obsolete)Adjective
Synonyms
* artful * cunning * knowing * sharp * crafty * shrewd * shifty * sly as a fox * slim * wily * See alsoDerived terms
* sly as a fox * slyboots * slynessExternal links
* *Adverb
Anagrams
* ----slippery
English
Adjective
(er)- Oily substances render things slippery .
- a slippery person
- a slippery promise
- Which when they fall, as being slippery' standers, / The love that leaned on them, as ' slippery too, / Do one pluck down another, and together / Die in the fall.
- The slippery state of kings.
- My wife is slippery ? If thou wilt confess –