Sly

//slaɪ//

Synonyms for "sly" (138 found)

Ranked by relevance and common usage.

Closest matches (28)

artful crafty cunning guileful knowing sharp shifty shrewd slim surreptitious wily acute adroit arch astute back door back-door backstairs byzantine cagey

Show 4 more words

calculating canny clan clandestine

Adjective(4 words)

shrewd abstruse artful cautious

Strong matches (41)

clever covert creep crooked cute deceitful deep deep-laid designing devious dexterous diplomatic dishonest disingenuous downy evasive feline foxy furtive gumshoe

Show 10 more words

hidlings hole-and-corner hugger mugger hugger-mugger ingenious insidious insincere inventive lurk machiavellian

Adjective(5 words)

cloak-and-dagger crafty cunning evasive knowing

Adjective(6 words)

crafty cunning dodgy foxy guileful knavish

Related words (69)

Related word relations

OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.

6 relation types

Synonyms

12 entries

artful crafty cunning guileful knowing sharp shifty shrewd slim sly as fox surreptitious wily

derived

9 entries

Sly syndrome by the sly on the sly sly as a fox sly dog sly fox sly-grog slyboots slyness

etymologically related_to

2 entries

slay sleight

has context

1 entries

having positive sense

related to

8 entries

cunning delicate dextrous mischievous secrecy slyly subtle wily

similar

1 entries

artful

Translations

103 translations across 44 languages.

Ancient Greek

2 entries

κίδαφος adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
πανοῦργος adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Arabic

4 entries

خبيث adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
خَبِيث adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
مكار adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
مَاكِر adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Armenian

1 entries

խորամանկ adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Basque

1 entries

azeri adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Belarusian

1 entries

хі́тры adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Bulgarian

4 entries

изкусен adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)
кова́рен adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
лука́в adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
потаен adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)

Catalan

2 entries

astut adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
murri adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Chinese Mandarin

3 entries

狡猾 adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
狡黠 adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
鬼黠 adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Church Slavic

2 entries

лѫкавъ adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
хꙑтръ adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Czech

2 entries

lstivý adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
prohnaný adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Dutch

1 entries

sluw adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Esperanto

1 entries

ruza adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Finnish

3 entries

ovela adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
ovela adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)
viekas adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

French

4 entries

espiègle adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
malin adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
matois adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
rusé adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

German

4 entries

gerissen adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
listig adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
schlau adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
verschmitzt adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Gothic

1 entries

𐌻𐌹𐍃𐍄𐌴𐌹𐌲𐍃 adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Hungarian

1 entries

ravasz adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Ingrian

2 entries

kavala adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
veekas adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Irish

2 entries

bradach adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
glic adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)

Italian

4 entries

furbo adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
furtivo adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)
sornione adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
sornione adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)

Japanese

2 entries

狡い adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
狡猾な adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Korean

1 entries

교활하다 adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Latin

3 entries

callidus adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
vafer adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
versūtus adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Macedonian

1 entries

лукав adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Middle English

4 entries

sleighte adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
sleighty adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
sly adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
sly adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)

Māori

2 entries

mūrere adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
tītipa adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Neapolitan

1 entries

'mbruglione adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Norman

1 entries

seurnouais adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Norwegian

4 entries

listig adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)
sleip adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
slu adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
slu adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)

Ottoman Turkish

2 entries

آصمق adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
قورناز adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Plautdietsch

1 entries

schlau adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Polish

2 entries

chytry adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
cwany adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Portuguese

3 entries

astuto adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
esperto adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
manhoso adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Romanian

1 entries

viclean adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Russian

4 entries

иску́сный adj (done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy)
кова́рный adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
ло́вкий adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
лука́вый adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Sanskrit

1 entries

धूर्त adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Serbo-Croatian

4 entries

lukav adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
lukav adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
prepreden adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
лукав adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Slovak

4 entries

chytrý adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
prešibaný adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
prešibaný adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
ľstivý adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Slovene

2 entries

pretkan adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
zvit adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Spanish

4 entries

astuto adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
habilidoso adj (dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble)
listo adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
pillo adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Swedish

1 entries

slug adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Turkish

1 entries

kurnaz adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Ukrainian

2 entries

лука́вий adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)
хи́трий adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Yiddish

1 entries

כיטרע adj (artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily)

Sample sentences

11 total sentences available.

Tatoeba + Wiktionary

I don't like him because he is sly as a fox.

Source: tatoeba (292060)

He is a sly fox.

Source: tatoeba (293858)

He appears sly on the surface.

Source: tatoeba (303084)

Aren't you the sly one?

Source: tatoeba (3168289)

Showing 4 of 11 available sentences.

More for "sly"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.