Artfully clever

Usage examples of wily.

The Culture - the real Culture, the wily ones, not these semi-mystical Elenchers with their miserable hankering to be somebody else - had been known to give whole Affronter fleets the run-around for several months with not dissimilar enticements and subterfuges, keeping them occupied, seemingly on the track of some wildly promising prey which turned out to be nothing at all, or a Culture ship with some ridiculous but earnestly argued excuse, while the Culture or one of its snivelling client species got on - or away - with something else somewhere else, spoiling rightful Affronter fun.

The wily Beduin knew the purpose of that portcullis and he was trying to plan best how he might enter the enclosure beyond before it could be dropped before his face.

For the thousandth time, he wished Bowser were still here, wily and unpredictable and fiercely unwilling to surrender.

The chances were even that the wily old killer would sell him to the constables the first chance he got if he thought he could somehow avoid being confronted with his own malefactions, but Kaspar had to take risks at this point.

When they could, they downed wily pronghorn antelope, skinny mule deer, and shaggy wild horses.

Jesse was one of the few who had called attention to the imbalance, and finally, eyeing the wealth reaped by the wily Hoskanners, the other nobles agitated for a piece of the action.

Turk had been employed as a waiter aboard his showboat, the wily Turner had visited the morgue and identified the drowned girl as his missing dancer.

Trying to disarm wily Senator Stillworth was unthinkable, not to mention his four armed cronies.

Marion is proverbially the great master of strategy -- the wily fox of the swamps -- never to be caught, never to be followed, -- yet always at hand, with unconjectured promptness, at the moment when he is least feared and is least to be expected.

Although his wrists, like ours, were bound behind his back, the wily and cunning former Grand Vizier of Kor maintained an unruled demeanor.

Elders, if men had Elders, and if the Colonial Coalition had any sense at all, they would be as wily and problematic as anyone in the New Amazonian Parliament.

Jack Shannon, his wily roommate, had spent their nights at barrelhouse piano saloons on the South Side, listening to musicians with names like Pine Top Smith, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Speckled Red, and Cow Cow Davenport pound the keys on their uprights.

But when Abu Batn was near, Ibn Dammuk ignored the fair prisoner, and this caused Zora the most apprehension, for it convinced her that the wily Ibn was but biding his time until he might find conditions favorable to the carrying out of some scheme that he already had decided upon, nor did Zora harbor any doubts as to the general purpose of his plan.

Practically the entire passenger list had been composed of crooks employed by the wily Birmingham Jones.

And when the Bretwalda leapt through the flame-curtain, his loathsome axe high in the air, the wily Arthur dodged aside, leaving only the sharp edge of his sword behind.