sly

There is, however, one dazzlingly strange interlude of repressed conflict that radiates such retro 1950s-fixated weirdness that it’s as if David Lynch took a sly pass at the “Mad Max” universe.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

You have to be clever, not sly, in how you deal with it.

From BBC ● May 8, 2026

In the live-wire 2015 comedy-drama “Dope” and as the voice of Miles Morales in the “Spider-Verse” films, Moore proved himself a sly, likable star with flirty charm.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 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

She took hold of the reins and looked down at him with a sly smile.

From "Breadcrumbs" by Anne Ursu

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

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

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 D. Laing Purves

Considering the series’ tone and genre, one may expect the conversion to shift into the age-old “Die Hard” debate – but series creator Joe Barton is slyer than that.

From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2024

One of the slyer jokes in “No Sudden Move,” Steven Soderbergh’s smart, insouciantly twisty thriller set in 1954 Detroit, is how little some of its characters know about cars.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2021

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

But given their lines, it’s impossible for them not to register as grotesquely obtuse variations on the limousine-liberal guilt junkies from the slyer, fuller plays of Wallace Shawn.

From New York Times ● Oct. 15, 2018

So it’s interesting, and more than a little disturbing, to see how Barb turned out—that she’s meaner and slyer than I am, more cherishing of grudges, and not quite as smart as I’d hoped.

From "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

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 Samuel Warren

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

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

Their testimony represents the movie’s slyest joke and its most revealing fantasy.

From New York Times ● Jun. 2, 2016

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

These jokes expired about the time Twitter’s co-founders taught Oprah how to tweet on the air in 2009, and yet here they are, on one of the slyest shows on television in 2013.

From Slate ● Feb. 8, 2013

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

He knew that Brushtail the Fox was one of the slyest creatures in the woods, and he was pretty sure now that he would get away for this time at least.

From Doctor Rabbit and Brushtail the Fox by Milo Winter