guileful

1 clever at attaining one's ends by indirect and often deceptive means tried to fix the game with a guileful plot to sabotage the other team's bats, but the umpire caught them Synonyms beguiling, cagey (also cagy), crafty, cunning, cute, designing, devious, dodgy [chiefly British], foxy, artful, scheming, shrewd, slick, sly, subtle, tricky, wilyRelated Words astute, facile, glib, sharp; crooked, deceitful, deceptive, dishonest, fraudulent, insinuating, knavish, Machiavellian, oblique, serpentine, shady, shifty, slippery, sneaky, treacherous, underhand, underhanded, unscrupulous; backhanded, double-dealing, hypocritical, insincere, left-handed, mealy, mealymouthed, smooth-tongued, two-faced; circuitous, circular, roundabout; clandestine, concealed, covert, furtive, hugger-mugger, secret, stealthy, surreptitious, undercover; calculating, plottingNear Antonyms obvious, open, patent, plain, public, unconcealed; aboveboard, candid, direct, forthright, frank, honest, natural, outspoken, plainspoken, real, simple, sincere, straightforward, unaffected, unpretending, unpretentious, unvarnished; childlike, impressionable, simpleminded, unsophisticated, unworldly; unforced, unstudied; trustful, trustingAntonyms artless, guileless, ingenuous, innocent, undesigning

2 given to or marked by cheating and deception received a guileful answer when I asked the dealer if the used car had ever been in a collision Synonyms bent [chiefly British], crooked, deceptive, double-dealing, duplicitous, fast, fraudulent, dishonest, rogue, shady, sharp, shifty, underhand, underhandedRelated Words unconscionable, unethical, unprincipled, unscrupulous; deceitful, deceiving, deluding, delusive, delusory, false; artful, beguiling, cagey (also cagy), crafty, cunning, foxy, slick, sly, subtle, wily; defrauding, devious, furtive, slippery, sneaking, sneaky, trickish, tricky; insidious, perfidious, treacherousNear Antonyms conscientious, decent, ethical, honorable, just, scrupulous, upright; forthright, straightforwardAntonyms aboveboard, honest, straight