Sly vs Ulterior - What's the difference?
sly | ulterior |
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.
Situated beyond, or on the farther side.
Beyond what is obvious or evident.
Being intentionally concealed so as to deceive.
* 1956–1960 , (second edition, 1960), chapter ii: “Motives and Motivation”, page 32:
(label) Happening later; subsequent.
:an ulterior action
* 1840 , in The Chemist , volume 1, page 141:
As adjectives the difference between sly and ulterior
is that sly is artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily while ulterior is situated beyond, or on the farther side.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
* ----ulterior
English
Alternative forms
* ulteriour (obsolete)Adjective
(-)- Motives, of course, may be mixed; but this only means that a man aims at a variety of goals by means of the same course of action. Similarly a man may have a strong motive or a weak one, an ulterior motive or an ostensible one.
- A rather deep red coloration, which appears by the action of the first bubbles of chlorine, but which soon disappears by the ulterior action of this gas