By the end of Liebling's dispatch, Mollie has become a mythic figure invulnerable to death, capable of great feats of courage and guile, and able to transform himself into any human type for the purposes of disguise.—Lee Siegel, Harper's, December 2004The going was painfully slow, but Chickenhound consoled himself on the long journey by boosting his own ego. "Maybe a silly bunch of rats could put one over on Sela. Huh, she was old and had lost a lot of her guile. Not like me! They hadn't reckoned with a smart intelligent young fox like I am."—Brian Jacques, Redwall, (1986) 2002Untrained human nature was not frank and innocent; it was full of the twists and defences of an instinctive guile.—Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, 1920
a shady salesman who usually relies on a combination of quick thinking and guile
a person so full of guile he can't even be trusted to give you the correct time of day
Recent Examples on the WebWhat Hemings secured for herself through Jefferson, with an unknowable titration of guile and disgust and affection, Luce secures similarly through Mike.—Jesse Green, New York Times, 17 Apr. 2024 Avery had rolled out his deadly plans with all the guile and strategic know-how that his navy training had taught him.—Sean Kingsley, Smithsonian Magazine, 2 Apr. 2024 Opponents had underestimated the grit and guile of someone who grew up poor, cut his teeth in the labor and immigrant rights movements and wasn’t about to leave the good life of politics just because a bunch of wokosos screamed at him.—Gustavo Arellano, Los Angeles Times, 6 Mar. 2024 That is partly because smaller armies facing larger foes must rely on guile over brawn.—Shashank Joshi, Foreign Affairs, 20 Feb. 2024 See all Example Sentences for guile
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'guile.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
Middle English gile, from Anglo-French, probably of Germanic origin; akin to Old English wigle divination — more at witch
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