Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Some what crafty; sly; cunning; artful; deceitful.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective rare Sly; crafty; cunning; artful.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective sly; crafty; cunning

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Latin subdolus, sub + dolus deceit.

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Examples

  • Vitarius said, "I was not aware you knew such a subdolous weasel as Loganaro, Conan."

    Conan the Fearless Perry, Steve 1986

  • Anthony at last pay with his life the penalty of that subdolous alliance?

    The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus; With His Account of Germany, and Life of Agricola Caius Cornelius Tacitus

  • She looked at the subdolous, pale-green eyes, with their predatory restlessness, at the square-blocked, flaccid jaw, and the beefy, animal-like massiveness of the strong neck, at the huge form odorous of gin and cigar smoke, and the great, hairy hands marked with their purplish veinings.

    Phantom Wires A Novel Arthur Stringer 1912

  • Durkin next saw his enemy gaze about the entire circle of the room scrutinizingly, the subdolous green eyes coming to a rest only when they fell on his own relaxed figure.

    Phantom Wires A Novel Arthur Stringer 1912

  • The fact was, the author was a conspicuous, shining light of his generation; the associate of princes and ministers; who, from the commanding position of his exalted eminence, cast his eyes over wide views of mankind that stretched into sweeping vistas of artifice and dissimulation; and who, for close upon half a century, participated prominently in the active business, -- the subdolous and knavish politics, -- of his time.

    Tacitus and Bracciolini The Annals Forged in the XVth Century John Wilson Ross 1852

  • Of all this family, none were so supreme as the Emir Bescheer, who governed Lebanon during the Egyptian invasion, and to whose subdolous career and its consequences we have already referred.

    Tancred Or, The New Crusade Benjamin Disraeli 1842

  • His manners also varied with the several junctures of his fortune: he was well esteemed while yet a private man; and, in discharging public dignities under Augustus, of signal reputation: covert and subdolous in feigning virtue so long as Germanicus and Drusus survived: a mixed character of good and evil during the days of his mother: detestably cruel; but secret in his lewdness, while he loved or feared Sejanus: at last he abandoned himself, at once, to the rage of tyranny and the sway of his lusts: for, he had then conquered all the checks of shame and fear, and thenceforth followed only the bent of his own abominable spirit.

    The Reign of Tiberius, Out of the First Six Annals of Tacitus; With His Account of Germany, and Life of Agricola Caius Cornelius Tacitus

  • He who shall more honor truth than the vain subtilities of theology, will quickly perceive that this pompous science is nothing more than an unintelligible jumble of false hypothesis; that it continually begs its principles; is full of sophisms; contains only vitiated circles; embraces the most subdolous distinctions; is ushered to mankind by the most disingenuous arguments, from which it is not possible, under any given circumstances, there should result any thing but puerilities -- the most endless disputes.

    The System of Nature, Volume 2 Paul Henri Thiry Holbach 1756

Comments

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  • Sly; crafty; cunning; artful.

    December 16, 2007