sly

His nimble, stylish solo on Henry Mancini’s 1963 theme to the police-caper comedy “The Pink Panther” became cultural shorthand for an era of sly jazz panache.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026

“The long and winding road is more than a song,” he sings, with a sly wink to his Beatles past.

From Salon ● Apr. 24, 2026

I saw his pale skin turned purple, his sly mouth gone flat.

From Slate ● Apr. 23, 2026

Yet where that film’s sinuous sculpting of time is marvelously sly and organic, “Blue Heron” always feels a little too carefully mapped out to achieve a similarly breathtaking effect.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026

Frequently the Ancient joined them, bringing nelumbo nuts and his cackling laugh, and his sly, wise teasing.

From "The Golden Goblet" by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

But I began to suspect he was up to something slier in the course of this 800-plus-page doorstopper.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 2, 2021

Julia understands digital media—and print media, for that matter—as well as anyone I’ve ever met, and every day she made the Slate we were editing together slier and fresher and more fun.

From Slate ● Oct. 26, 2018

It’s only made them trickier, slier, more evasive, harder to read.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood

He had a Sompnour ready to his hand, A slier boy was none in Engleland; For subtlely he had his espiaille,* *espionage That taught him well where it might aught avail.

From The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems by Purves, D. Laing

The hungry thousands that crowded and pushed at Willard's thought him one of them, only deeper and slier.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 08, No. 45, July, 1861 by Various

And in one of the film’s slyer jokes, the hip-hop song “White Boy Summer” by their son Chet Hanks is used to personify a certain kind of clueless obliviousness in others.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2022

I just adore how it seems to embolden Young, to make him brasher, slyer, swaggier.

From New York Times ● Apr. 28, 2022

And other late-night hosts also frankly and straightforwardly used the word on Monday, which was refreshing—though some were slyer about its usage than others.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2019

They don’t do so as self-righteous scolds or as stuffed shirts; they’re slyer than that, more entertaining.

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2012

He laughs again, and the nasty laugh admits I’m slyer than he guessed.

From "Grendel" by John Gardner

One of the last performances I saw in 2017 was one of the sliest: Billy Crudup in David Cale’s “Harry Clarke” at New York’s Vineyard Theatre.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 16, 2018

"Will my learned friend," said Mr. P —— with one of his sliest sneers, "inform us what motive the defendant could possibly have to keep back a witness so necessary to him?"

From The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney by Warren, Samuel

The sliest old thief that you ever did see; Hi, ho, see the chips fly!

From The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum by Burgess, Thornton W. (Thornton Waldo)

Where The White Lotus ends up, is, in some ways, the slyest joke of all.

From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2021

Peter Debruge in Variety noted "of all the satirists working in cinema today, Östlund displays perhaps the slyest streak of dark humor."

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2014

He was riveting, but in the slyest possible way.

From New York Times ● Feb. 15, 2010

Where the network’s “True Detective” occasionally broke its dolefulness with the slyest, philosophically artful wink at an audience riveted by its mystery, “The Leftovers” grafts more unhappiness onto unhappiness.

From Washington Post

Upon my honor you are the slyest devil that ever crept out of an inkstand!

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 by Various