Cleverly tricky

Usage examples of sly.

Furtiveness and secretiveness seemed universal in this hushed city of alienage and death, and I could not escape the sensation of being watched from ambush on every hand by sly, staring eyes that never shut.

The thing was done so rapidly that the sheriff--a sly, keen fellow, worthy of his clients Barbet and Metivier--found the lad weeping in his chair when he entered the wretched room, after assuring himself that the manuscripts were not in the antechamber.

Tancret, good old Tancret, whom he, Bendel, loved as a brother and whom he continued to see on the sly, since his wife, he did not know why, had grown angry at the charming fellow.

Anna had some sly reason for taking Andrew and Bitten to the cemetery island of San Michele, I had no doubt.

And they turned with sly, buckish grins to glance at Whitney, whose face now matched the wheezing red coals in the hearth beside her.

Then, leaping upon the horse, whose bridle he was holding, he forced it to rear, caracole and display its spirit and its paces before Domini, sitting it superbly, and shooting many sly glances at Suzanne, who leaned over the parapet of the verandah watching, with a rapt expression on her face.

He put on a sly grin and refused to respond to the goodnatured chiacking over supper.

I was not vain enough to suppose that they loved me, but I could well enough admit that my kisses had influenced them in the same manner that their kisses had influenced me, and, believing this to be the case, it was evident that, with a little cunning on my part, and of sly practices of which they were ignorant, I could easily, during the long night I was going to spend with them, obtain favours, the consequences of which might be very positive.

Marcoline knew how to manage her mezzaro so well that, though he was both seen and laughed at, the poor devil could not be certain that she had noticed him at all, and in addition the sly girl held me so closely by the arm that he must have concluded we were very intimate.

The sly puss went out quickly enough, but I was as sharp as she, and trod on the tail of her dress so that she could not shut the door after her.

Jael shivered with envy, and with nervousness, because she sensed in Dap a sly querying interest toward her now.

Veda, with a sly glint in her eyes, held her hand out to Darr Veter and lie lifted her out of the Lushes with an easy movement.

Fisher replied, waiting until his colleague had left the morgue before turning to Desai and offering a sly smile.

The excerpt that follows is an interesting example of how the lack of ftf cues can make it difficult to tell whether someone is intending humor or irony, and when they are being honest or sly.

Just then a sly breeze raised the curls from his eyes, And he woke from a dream to extatic surprise.