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adjective
Idiom1.
cunning or wily: sly as a fox.
2.
stealthy, insidious, or secret.
3.
playfully artful, mischievous, or roguish: sly humor.
4.
on the sly, secretly; furtively: a tryst on the sly.
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On the sly
is always a great word to know.
So is ort. Does it mean:
| a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
Origin:
1150–1200; Middle English sly, sley < Old Norse slœgr sly, cunning
1150–1200; Middle English sly, sley < Old Norse slœgr sly, cunning
Related forms
sly·ly, sli·ly, adverb
sly·ness, noun
un·sly, adjective
un·sly·ly, adverb
un·sly·ness, noun
Synonyms
1. artful, subtle, foxy, crafty, shrewd, astute. 2. surreptitious, furtive, underhand, clandestine.
1. artful, subtle, foxy, crafty, shrewd, astute. 2. surreptitious, furtive, underhand, clandestine.
Antonyms
1. direct, obvious.
1. direct, obvious.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To on the sly
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
sly
c.1200, from O.N. sloegr "cunning, crafty, sly," from P.Gmc. *slogis (cf. Low Ger. slu "cunning, sly"), probably from base *slog- "hit" (see slay), with an original notion of "able to hit." Cf. Ger. verschlagen "cunning, crafty, sly," schlagfertig "quick-witted," lit. "ready
EXPANDto strike," from schlagen "to strike." A non-pejorative use of the word lingered in northern Eng. dialect until 20c. On the sly "in secret" is recorded from 1812. Sly-boots "a seeming Silly, but subtil Fellow" is in the 1700 "Dictionary of the Canting Crew."
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Slang Dictionary
on the sly definition
|
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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sly definition
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Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases
on the sly
Furtively, secretly, as in She's always eating cookies on the sly. The adjective sly, which means "cunning" or "crafty," is here used as a noun. [c. 1800]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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