Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • See slyly.

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

  • adverb See slyly.

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

  • adverb Alternative spelling of slyly.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • By these means the notion of my partiality took air, and whether Miss Thrale sent him word slily or not I cannot tell, but on the 25th January, 1783, Mr. Crutchley came hither to conjure me not to go to Italy; he had heard such things, he said, and by _means_ next to _miraculous_.

    Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) Edited with notes and Introductory Account of her life and writings Hester Lynch Piozzi 1781

  • “I think it will still be there Saturday,” my wife said slily, and we got in our car to go home.

    Female Scent-Marking in the Suburbs Con Chapman 2011

  • Many, like asses that wear out their time for provender, are so buried in the minor and immediate tasks of earning a living as to get confounded promptly and permanently with the victims of commercial ­ambition, whence it comes to pass that, slily and ­insensibly perverted, nerves frayed and brains dulled, they take to books as sick souls take to drugs.

    Notable & Quotable 2009

  • The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.

    A Christmas Carol 2007

  • The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his, and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her call, said:

    Dombey and Son 2007

  • A little further on, a hard – featured old man with a deeply – wrinkled face, was intently perusing a lengthy will with the aid of a pair of horn spectacles: occasionally pausing from his task, and slily noting down some brief memorandum of the bequests contained in it.

    Sketches by Boz 2007

  • Will you understand, I wonder, the excitement that possessed me when, plunged deep in the listlessness of despair, I opened my writing-table drawer, and found a fair and splendid ten-franc piece that shone like a rising star, new and sparkling, and slily hiding in a cranny between two boards?

    The Magic Skin 2007

  • The health of the reverend minister of Knocktarlitie was received with similar honours; and there was a roar of laughter, when one of his brethren slily subjoined the addition of, “A good wife to our brother, to keep the Manse in order.”

    The Heart of Mid-Lothian 2007

  • Mr. Stiggins looked slily at Sam; glanced at the old gentleman, who was sitting with his eyes closed, as if asleep; and drawing his chair still nearer, said — ‘Nothing for ME, Mr. Samuel?’

    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club 2007

  • All the time that he had appeared so indifferent to what was going on, he had been looking slily about for some missile or weapon of defence, and at the very instant when the swords were drawn, he espied, standing in the chimney – corner, an old basket – hilted rapier in a rusty scabbard.

    The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club 2007

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