wily
Americanadjective
-
wilier,
comparative
-
wiliest
superlative
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of wily
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at wile, -y 1
Explanation
Did you fall for that wily door-to-door salesman's pitch? He must be very slick and tricky to have convinced you to buy a set of new tires, considering you don't have a car. How can you remember the meaning of the adjective wily? Just think about the old Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons. Their aptly named cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, got his name from a clever play on words. Wile E. is supposed to be cunning, crafty, and clever — in other words, wily. Wile E. is all those things, but unfortunately he was usually bested by that pesky roadrunner anyway. Meep. Meep.
Vocabulary lists containing wily
300 Most Difficult "SAT" Words
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List 7
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The Watsons Go to Birmingham
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Quantum particles, it turns out, are just as wily as Odysseus, as we have shown in an experiment published in Physical Review Letters.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
“The genius of the character, the cleverness, the inventiveness of him, that was a huge part of what interested me. He’s not just a soldier. He’s an amazing strategist, a very wily person.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026
For Neill, it was the passion for complex, wily characters, and how those types of people reacted in situations that were equally complicated.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
But their wily squad refused to be beaten.
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026
Despite his setbacks the previous year, Cal’s head coach Ky Ebright remained an extraordinarily wily opponent, widely regarded as the intellectual master of the sport.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
Factories are now able to supply better quality masks to meet the challenge of wilier new variants, but the communal work continues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 17, 2023
But the rattlesnake has another, wilier trick up its tail.
From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2021
I hadn’t heard any of the songs which, people said, were wilier and more mischievous than the straighter, soapier, we’re-in-love-now ballads that defined Disney movies past.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 9, 2019
Cuban is older than me and — by almost any objective standard — wiser, wealthier and wilier.
From Washington Post ● May 1, 2016
So far, the fish had proved wilier than they’d imagined.
From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray
In Iran, the president faces some of his wiliest and most implacable opponents.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026
The wiliest or greediest adult children have their eye on the main prize: real estate.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 3, 2025
Until the events of last Friday, Mr Rutte was seen as one of the wiliest survivors in European politics, even earning the nickname of "Teflon Mark".
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2023
Of the three, the last one, “Sacred Thread,” featuring the guitarist Julian Lage and the tabla icon Zakir Hussain, packs the wiliest punch.
From New York Times ● Sep. 8, 2022
Despite its being unmasked by the Soviets, Operation Gold secured Harvey's reputation inside the CIA as one of its wiliest and smartest operatives.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
