wily

adjective

ˈwī-lē 

wilier; wiliest

: full of wiles : crafty

a wily negotiator

wilily

ˈwī-lə-lē 

adverb

wiliness

ˈwī-lē-nəs 

noun

Synonyms

• cunning
• cute

Choose the Right Synonym for wily

sly, cunning, crafty, wily, tricky, foxy, artful, slick mean attaining or seeking to attain one's ends by guileful or devious means.

sly implies furtiveness, lack of candor, and skill in concealing one's aims and methods.

a sly corporate raider

cunning suggests the inventive use of sometimes limited intelligence in overreaching or circumventing.

the cunning fox avoided the trap

crafty implies cleverness and subtlety of method.

a crafty lefthander

wily implies skill and deception in maneuvering.

the wily fugitive escaped the posse

tricky is more likely to suggest shiftiness and unreliability than skill in deception and maneuvering.

a tricky political operative

foxy implies a shrewd and wary craftiness usually involving devious dealing.

a foxy publicity man planting stories

artful implies indirectness in dealing and often connotes sophistication or cleverness.

elicited the information by artful questioning

slick emphasizes smoothness and guile.

slick operators selling time-sharing

Examples of wily in a Sentence

She turned out to be a wily negotiator.

a wily judge of character, she takes advantage of car buyers' insecurities to sell them a bigger machine than they really need

Recent Examples on the Web

The semicolon is a wily punctuation mark. —Nicole Fallert, USA Today, 22 Sep. 2025

The book is a kind of illness travelogue in which the wily poet-author’s avatar shows up every day in a new mind and body, and often in a new place, with rejiggered symptoms, and attempts to win her reborn self’s favor, or at least its mercy. —Paul McAdory, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2025

Redford played the wily outlaw opposite Newman in 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a box-office smash from which Redford's Sundance Institute and festival got its name. —Shane Croucher, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Sep. 2025

Potential trouble arises when the wily victim of Danny’s, Pauline, starts snooping around the house, hears Danny’s voice and starts to bargain for her silence. —Pete Hammond, Deadline, 6 Sep. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for wily

• dryly
• highly
• kiley
• shyly
• slyly
• smiley
• wryly

Kids Definition

wily

adjective

ˈwī-lē 

wilier; wiliest

: full of deceit : tricky

a wily opponent

wiliness noun