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wily
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  • Ever the wily American.†   (source)
  • Tess, though, is slender and wily.†   (source)
  • The titles were near as long as books themselves: Treatise on the Propagation of Sheep, the Manufacture of Wool, and the Cultivation and Manufacture of Flax, by John Wily, or Cato Major, Or His Discourse of Old-Age: With Explanatory Notes, by M. T. Cicero, or Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, and countless tracts containing sermons and advice.†   (source)
  • He was a wily one, no doubt about it.†   (source)
  • He was more interested in Michael's capacity to serve as an entertaining big brother and wily co-conspirator.†   (source)
  • That Iraqi president was one wily devil, ducking and diving between his thirteen palaces, evading capture, making tape recordings, urging the dregs of his armed forces to keep killing us, encouraging the insurgents to continue the war against the great Satan (that's us).†   (source)
  • Wily veterans, on the other hand, will absorb those details, or possibly overlook them, to find the patterns, the routines, the archetypes at work in the background.†   (source)
  • The flat, foolish pallathi, the silver paral, the wily, whiskered koori, the sometimes karimeen.†   (source)
  • Yes, Amy is using a Madness song to give me a clue to my own freedom, if only I can decipher their wily, ska-infused codes.†   (source)
  • Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge the Pheacian youthat boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by a song.†   (source)
  • Slowly, his lips twist in a wily smile.†   (source)
  • She's wily, that one.†   (source)
  • …knave, so shrewd, cagey as well as calculating, as diabolical as I am vulpine, as tricky as I am untrustworthy …. well, I told you there were not words invented yet to explain how great my brain is, but let me put it this way: the world is several million years old and several billion people have at one time or another trod upon it, but I, Vizzini the Sicilian, am, speaking with pure candor and modesty, the slickest, sleekest, sliest and wiliest fellow who has yet come down the pike.†   (source)
  • A few minutes after that score, the same wily forward for Roswell snuck behind the Fugees defense and blasted another shot past Ervin.†   (source)
  • He thought of the Threarah and his wily courtesy.†   (source)
  • With a beat and a bang on the bones of the land, I conquered wily old iron!†   (source)
  • I know you shoot for sport, but have you ever hunted an animal wilier than you?†   (source)
  • They were wily foxes, and worse about joking when the two of them were together.†   (source)
  • Frank calls him Jedgar sometimes and the Director likes the name although he never lets on—it is medieval and princely and wily-dark.†   (source)
  • I was just wondering which would be the winner in a contest such as this—an Indian fighter's intuition or that wily old boy, coincidence," Roger wrote later.†   (source)
  • But they were wily and they had a clandestine assistant.†   (source)
  • Few women anywhere could resist such wily cajolery, and prostitutes would spring to their feet eagerly and hurl themselves into whatever fantastic poses he requested for them.†   (source)
  • He had no experience dealing with either warlords or wily merchants.†   (source)
  • "Because we're wily," said Hugh.†   (source)
  • It would have been so easy to heed the wily words of Locaha and sink into the blackness, but that would have drowned her, too.†   (source)
  • In Paris the three American envoys would be dealing with the extremely wily and charming new French Foreign Minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord.†   (source)
  • By the second bag, I had become more wily.†   (source)
  • By the time the Bay of Pigs is over he will count among these enemies not only Castro but also one of the highest-ranking officials of the U.S. government: the wily CIA chief, Allen Dulles.†   (source)
  • They were older and stronger and more wily.†   (source)
  • For a moment, Max thought Bellagrog would conjure another argument, right her ship with the same wily ingenuity she had demonstrated throughout the afternoon.†   (source)
  • Wild things are elusive and wily and look out for themselves.†   (source)
  • I could never abide the weeping of women, Joff once said, but his mother was the wily woman weeping now.†   (source)
  • Louisa had proudly watched as Lou rose each time Hit knocked her down, the girl growing not more afraid through each tussle with the wily beast, but rather more determined.†   (source)
  • Even as a schoolboy, I loved John Keats's ode "To Autumn" for being an ark of the covenant between language and sensation; as an adolescent, I loved Gerard Manley Hopkins for the intensity of his exclamations which were also equations for a rapture and an ache I didn't fully know I knew until I read him; I loved Robert Frost for his farmer's accuracy and his wily down-to-earthness; and Chaucer too for much the same reasons.†   (source)
  • George had never caught anything, and the fish in the lagoon were much too wily to be trapped.†   (source)
  • Meanwhile, at Angelo's palate, wily Ercole's string has run out at last.†   (source)
  • The one bore a wily-looking little man, with a sharp nose and a laughing mouth and a shock of straw-colored hair.†   (source)
  • She never forbade me to run with Frankie or Nino or Jerry or Carmen or Joe, but for the longest time she tried by wily arts to break those friendships.†   (source)
  • "Pull it and hear the drum beat," said the wily man, holding out the string to Puli, and how could he resist it, who was only a child, when I myself was enchanted!†   (source)
  • He's a wily Shanty Mick, that one.†   (source)
  • But the Devil is a wily one, you cannot deny it.   (source)
    wily = tricky
  • Amalinze was a wily craftsman, but Okonkwo was as slippery as a fish in water.   (source)
    wily = clever
  • The black tips of their shoes poked out from under their cuffs like the snouts of wily animals.†   (source)
  • I Had to Admit That rabbits were about as as wily it got.†   (source)
  • What we're trying to do is learn to read this sort of thing like a wily old professor, to learn to spot those familiar images, like being able to see the elephant before we connect the dots.†   (source)
  • But correspondents are a wily bunch.†   (source)
  • Sir Leigh Teabing had vociferously proclaimed his innocence, and yet from his incoherent rantings about the Holy Grail, secret documents, and mysterious brotherhoods, Fache suspected the wily historian was setting the stage for his lawyers to plead an insanity defense.†   (source)
  • "Just so," he said with a wily smile.†   (source)
  • And, if I may say so, wily.†   (source)
  • For over an hour, Eragon hunted Galbatorix's magicians, but to little avail, for they were wily and cunning and did not directly attack him.†   (source)
  • Doc Daneeka had lost his head during Milo's bombardment; instead of running for cover, he had remained out in the open and performed his duty, slithering along the ground through shrapnel, strafing and incendiary bombs like a furtive, wily lizard from casualty to casualty, administering tourniquets, morphine, splints and sulfanilamide with a dark and doleful visage, never saying one word more than he had to and reading in each man's bluing wound a dreadful portent of his own decay.†   (source)
  • They were wily, too.†   (source)
  • When Buddha wanted the rat to spread his word, the wily creature tried to get a free ride from the horse.†   (source)
  • When Snow Flower and I met again, we compared conversations, laughing at how her aunt was still the same, with her powdered face and wily ways.†   (source)
  • Blagden was too wily, however.†   (source)
  • Wily old iron.†   (source)
  • The wily shaman changed himself into a wasp.†   (source)
  • But this wily god never discloses even to the skillful questioner the whole content of his wisdom.†   (source)
  • Had he known more about dragons and their wily ways, he might have teen more frightened and less hopeful of catching this one napping.†   (source)
  • There was silence for as long as two seconds and then the wily village voice began to answer him, 'We are poor, father.†   (source)
  • Pablo is very wily.†   (source)
  • He had a wicked and a wily heart, and he knew his guesses were not far out, though he suspected that the Lake-men were at the back of the plans, and that most of the plunder was meant to stop there in the town by the shore that in his young days had been called Esgaroth.†   (source)
  • One further adventure of battle and love, and Cuchulainn returned to find Forgall the Wily still against him.†   (source)
  • When the girl's father, Forgall the Wily, was told that the couple had talked together, he contrived to send Cuchulainn off to learn battle skills from Donall the Soldierly in Alba, supposing the youth would never return.†   (source)
  • In all am I scattered, and whensoever thou wiliest, thou gatherest Me; and gathering Me, thou gatherest Thyself.†   (source)
  • Don Carlos is a wily Greaser, he knows the ranges, he has the water, and he is dishonest.†   (source)
  • These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a guileful snake in the grass.†   (source)
  • Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man.†   (source)
  • I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while.†   (source)
  • But the advance of the wily snake itself is not more certain or noiseless than was his approach.†   (source)
  • In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils.†   (source)
  • No wily hates sought I; for myself swore not many Of oaths in unright.†   (source)
  • [He searches her face with his eyes, and shakes his finger at her] Oho, you are wily!†   (source)
  • 'What is it now, I say,' pursued the wily usurer, 'or what has it a chance of being?†   (source)
  • Oh, no! he is too wily, too cowardly, for such a crime.†   (source)
  • So wily was he that he had not trusted himself upon foot, but he had availed himself of a cab so that he could loiter behind or dash past them and so escape their notice.†   (source)
  • And the coxswain, Israel Hands, was a careful, wily, old, experienced seaman who could be trusted at a pinch with almost anything.†   (source)
  • Ay, Sirs, on all sides I hear that in your ranks you scoff at me; That the Cadets, these loutish, mountain-bred, Poor country squires, and barons of Perigord, Scarce find for me—their Colonel—a disdain Sufficient! call me plotter, wily courtier!†   (source)
  • The man spoke truly; he might unwittingly, in sheer terror, utter the shriek that might prove a warning to the wily Scarlet Pimpernel.†   (source)
  • So wily, and we must follow with wile.†   (source)
  • The prattle of the little ones and their pleasure in the stories I told them of elf and gnome, of hero and wily bear, are pleasant things to remember.†   (source)
  • They told stories of their wonderful feats with fowl, fish and quadruped—how many wild ducks and turkeys they had shot, what "savage trout" they had caught, and how they had bagged the craftiest foxes, outwitted the most clever 'possums and overtaken the fleetest deer, until I thought that surely the lion, the tiger, the bear and the rest of the wild tribe would not be able to stand before these wily hunters.†   (source)
  • I am sure that, not two leagues from here, we shall come across that wily Reuben, his nag, his cart and the tall stranger all in a heap in the middle of the road.†   (source)
  • We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack, for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house.†   (source)
  • Our old fox is wily.†   (source)
  • One of his comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved.†   (source)
  • "And yet I should think, from all we have heard in the towns, that the soldiers on this frontier are used to the artifices of their enemies," said Mabel, "and become almost as wily as the red men themselves."†   (source)
  • What a wily person you are!†   (source)
  • Thinkest thou, Waldemar, that the wily Archbishop will not suffer thee to be taken from the very horns of the altar, would it make his peace with King Richard?†   (source)
  • Perhaps Atlanta was not christened for the winged maiden of dull Boeotia; you know the tale,—how swarthy Atalanta, tall and wild, would marry only him who out-raced her; and how the wily Hippomenes laid three apples of gold in the way.†   (source)
  • Certainly a call to the visitors' room had scarcely astonished Andrea less than themselves, for the wily youth, instead of making use of his privilege of waiting to be claimed on his entry into La Force, had maintained a rigid silence.†   (source)
  • He saw, at once, that this wily savage had some secret agency in their present arraignment before the nation, and determined to throw every possible impediment in the way of the execution of his sinister plans.†   (source)
  • The manner in which the Indian approached the place that was supposed to contain enemies, resembled the wily advances of the cat on the bird.†   (source)
  • "You won't like EVERYTHING from India now, Miss Sharp," said the old gentleman; but when the ladies had retired after dinner, the wily old fellow said to his son, "Have a care, Joe; that girl is setting her cap at you."†   (source)
  • Back came the wily doctor.†   (source)
  • "The will of the nation" is one of those expressions which have been most profusely abused by the wily and the despotic of every age.†   (source)
  • Here stands this black young Atalanta, girding herself for the race that must be run; and if her eyes be still toward the hills and sky as in the days of old, then we may look for noble running; but what if some ruthless or wily or even thoughtless Hippomenes lay golden apples before her?†   (source)
  • His glove hung aloft, Wondrous and wide, in wily bands fast, With cunning wiles was it begeared forsooth, With crafts of the devils and fells of the dragons; He me withinwards there, me the unsinning, The doer of big deeds would do me to be 2090 As one of the many; but naught so it might be, Sithence in mine anger upright I stood.†   (source)
  • But, it would have been a stranger contrast still, to have read the hearts that were beating side by side; to have laid bare the gentle innocence of the one, and the rugged villainy of the other; to have hung upon the guileless thoughts of the affectionate girl, and been amazed that, among all the wily plots and calculations of the old man, there should not be one word or figure denoting thought of death or of the grave.†   (source)
  • "Has my brother been a warrior?" said the wily Teton, in a tone that he intended should be conciliating.†   (source)
  • [Laughing] You are a wily one!†   (source)
  • Mr. Fagin saw, with delight, that this tribute to his powers was no mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance.†   (source)
  • "Ay, but thou forgettest," said the wily adviser, "thou wilt have neither leisure nor opportunity to execute this mad project.†   (source)
  • "No," answered the wily Huron, betraying the artifice he had so long practised, by speaking in English with tolerable accuracy, "I not ask prisoner.†   (source)
  • "As he came, just Tamenund," demanded the wily Magua, "or with hands filled with the faith of the Delawares?†   (source)
  • The Great Spirit wishes you well, and He has taken away the chief, lest you should be led astray by his wily tongue, and get to be a Mingo in your disposition, as you were already in your company.†   (source)
  • Content with the momentary examination he had made, the eldest of the group, who was in truth the delinquent sentinel by whose remissness the wily Mahtoree had so well profited, turned towards his father and said bluntly— "If this man is all that is left of the party I saw on the upland, yonder, we haven't altogether thrown away our ammunition."†   (source)
  • "It may be a minute, or it may be an hour, afore the wily sarpents steal upon us, and it is quite in natur' for them to be lying within hearing at this very moment," said Hawkeye; "but come they will, and in such a fashion as will leave us nothing to hope!†   (source)
  • Moving into the centre of the irritated group, he addressed them with his usual wily logic and plausible manner, at once suppressing the fierce movement that had commenced.†   (source)
  • Most of the hopes of the party rested on this favorable circumstance, though it was not without its dangers also, as the very obscurity which would favor their escape would be as likely to conceal the movements of their wily enemies.†   (source)
  • Work and wealth are the mighty levers to lift this old new land; thrift and toil and saving are the highways to new hopes and new possibilities; and yet the warning is needed lest the wily Hippomenes tempt Atalanta to thinking that golden apples are the goal of racing, and not mere incidents by the way.†   (source)
  • "Why, good Sir Maurice," rejoined the wily politician, "start not aside like a scared steed, without, at least, considering the object of your terror.†   (source)
  • This explanation was satisfactory, to Albert's great joy; for the wily knight had foreseen the great difficulty, or rather impossibility, of prevailing upon Brian de Bois-Guilbert to take such an oath before the assembly, and had invented this excuse to escape the necessity of his doing so.†   (source)
  • …and seemingly boundless forest which filled the other half of the panorama, would have fancied the spot the very abode of peacefulness and security; but Duncan of Lundie too well knew that the woods might, at any moment, give up their hundreds, bent on the destruction of the fort and all it contained; and that even the treacherous lake offered a highway of easy approach by which his more civilized and scarcely less wily foes, the French, could come upon him at an unguarded moment.†   (source)
  • The Huron listened to this rebuke with obvious disgust, but he had his ends in view, and was too wily to lose all chance of effecting them by a precipitate avowal of resentment.†   (source)
  • As such meetings were rare, and only called on occasions of the last importance, the subtle Huron, who still sat apart, a wily and dark observer of the proceedings, now knew that all his projects must be brought to their final issue.†   (source)
  • The latter could not comprehend the other's motives; he had often heard of his disinterestedness, justice, and truth; and in several instances they had led him into grave errors, on that principle by which a frank and open-mouthed diplomatist is said to keep his secrets better than one that is close-mouthed and wily.†   (source)
  • The habitual and wily flatterer may succeed until his practices recoil on himself, and like other sweets his aliment cloys by its excess; but he who deals honestly, though he often necessarily offends, possesses a power of praising that no quality but sincerity can bestow, since his words go directly to the heart, finding their support in the understanding.†   (source)
  • I too might ask—I too might enquire—I too might listen with a beating heart to fables which the wily strollers devise to cheat us into hospitality—but no—The son who has disobeyed me is no longer mine; nor will I concern myself more for his fate than for that of the most worthless among the millions that ever shaped the cross on their shoulder, rushed into excess and blood-guiltiness, and called it an accomplishment of the will of God.†   (source)
  • On the other hand the Huron resumed his seat by the side of his prisoner, the one continuing to ask questions with all the wily ingenuity of a practised Indian counsellor, and the other baffling him by the very means that are known to be the most efficacious in defeating the finesse of the more pretending diplomacy of civilization, or by confining his answers to the truth, and the truth only.†   (source)
  • Yet although, in combating his friend's better feelings, he possessed all the advantage which a wily, composed, selfish disposition has over a man agitated by strong and contending passions, it required all Malvoisin's art to keep Bois-Guilbert steady to the purpose he had prevailed on him to adopt.†   (source)
  • The meditations of the statesman were here interrupted by the voice of the Prince from an interior apartment, calling out, "Noble Waldemar Fitzurse!" and, with bonnet doffed, the future Chancellor (for to such high preferment did the wily Norman aspire) hastened to receive the orders of the future sovereign.†   (source)
  • And there he was in great peril, for the giant was a wily fighter, but at last Sir Marhaus smote off his right arm above the elbow.†   (source)
  • Odysseus, the wily field commander, scowled at him and answered: "Son of Atreus, what is this panic you permit yourself?†   (source)
  • And the Red Knight was a wily knight of war, and his wily fighting taught Sir Beaumains to be wise; but he abought it full sore or he did espy his fighting.†   (source)
  • But when he cometh to the strokes of his sword he is then noble and mighty, and that saw Sir Bleoberis and Sir Palomides, for wit ye well they are wily men of arms, and anon they know when they see a young knight by his riding, how they are sure to give him a fall from his horse or a great buffet.†   (source)
  • It is now too late to be saved by wiliness and he has lost the other.†   (source)
  • I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom.†   (source)
  • Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness.†   (source)
  • And when I have paid for the policeman who protects me and, if I live in a country where conscription is in force, served in the army which guards my house and land from the invader, I am quits with society: for the rest I counter its might with my wiliness.†   (source)
  • "Damn wily Scot," I said, laughing despite myself.†   (source)
  • I see that."
    With a dark glance
    wily Odysseus shot back, "Indecent talk, my friend.

    You, you're a reckless fool—I see that.†   (source)
  • Up with you, man,

    or before you know it, we'll be trading blows!"
    A killing look,
    and the wily old soldier countered, "Out of your mind?
    What damage have I done you?†   (source)
  • You terrible man,
    foxy, ingenious, never tired of twists and tricks—
    so, not even here, on native soil, would you give up
    those wily tales that warm the cockles of your heart!
    Come, enough of this now.†   (source)
  • The skies rain blessings on you!
    But tell me the truth now—this I'd like to know—
    shrewd Penelope, has she heard you're home?
    Or should we send a messenger?"
    "She knows by now,
    old man," his wily master answered brusquely.
    "Why busy yourself with that?"
    So Dolius went back to his sanded stool.
    His sons too, pressing around the famous king,
    greeted Odysseus warmly, grasped him by the hand
    then took their seats in order by their father.
    But now, as they fell to supper in the…†   (source)
  • …wring my heart …. and why?
    Listen to me closely, mark my words.
    Many a wayworn guest has landed here
    but never, I swear, has one so struck my eyes—
    your build, your voice, your feet—you're like Odysseus ….
    to the life!"
    "Old woman," wily Odysseus countered,
    "that's what they all say who've seen us both.
    We bear a striking resemblance to each other,
    as you have had the wit to say yourself."
    The old woman took up a burnished basin
    she used for washing feet and poured in…†   (source)
  • …I'll get you a shield and a pair of spears,
    a helmet of solid bronze to fit your temples!
    I'll arm myself on the way back and hand out
    arms to the swineherd, arm the cowherd too—
    we'd better fight equipped!"
    "Run, fetch them,"
    the wily captain urged, "while I've got arrows left
    to defend me—or they'll force me from the doors

    while I fight on alone!"
    Telemachus moved to his father's orders smartly.
    Off he ran to the room where the famous arms lay stored,
    took up four…†   (source)
  • …swells.
    We reached Tenedos quickly, sacrificed to the gods,
    the crews keen for home, but a quick return was not
    in Zeus's plans, not yet: that cruel power
    loosed a cursed feud on us once again.
    Some swung their rolling warships hard about—
    Odysseus sailed them back, the flexible, wily king,
    veering over to Agamemnon now to shore his fortunes up.
    But not I. Massing the ships that came in my flotilla,
    I sped away as the god's mischief kept on brewing,
    dawning on me now.†   (source)
  • The wily one just shook his head,
    silent, his mind churning with thoughts of bloody work ….
    Third to arrive was Philoetius, that good cowherd,
    prodding in for the crowd a heifer and fat goats.
    Boatmen had brought them over from the mainland,
    crews who ferry across all travelers too,
    whoever comes for passage.
    Under the echoing porch he tethered all heads well
    and then approached the swineherd, full of questions:
    "Who's this stranger, Eumaeus, just come to the house?
    What…†   (source)
  • He's our man, I'd say."
    And even as they conspired, back the goatherd
    climbed to the room to fetch more burnished arms,
    but Eumaeus spotted him, quickly told his king
    who stood close by: "Odysseus, wily captain,
    there he goes again, the infernal nuisance—
    just as we suspected—back to the storeroom.
    Give me a clear command!
    Do I kill the man—if I can take him down—
    or drag him back to you, here, to pay in full
    for the vicious work he's plotted in your house?"
    Odysseus, master…†   (source)
  • Poor fools, blind to the fact
    that all their necks were in the noose, their doom sealed.
    With a dark look, the wily fighter Odysseus shouted back,
    "You dogs! you never imagined I'd return from Troy—
    so cocksure that you bled my house to death,
    ravished my serving-women—wooed my wife
    behind my back while I was still alive!
    No fear of the gods who rule the skies up there,
    no fear that men's revenge might arrive someday—
    now all your necks are in the noose—your doom is…†   (source)
  • The unluckiest man alive!
    Here is your house, your wife at home, your son,
    as fine a boy as one could hope to have."
    "True,"
    the wily fighter replied, "how right you are, goddess,
    but still this worry haunts me, heart and soul—
    how can I get these shameless suitors in my clutches?
    Single-handed, braving an army always camped inside.
    There's another worry, that haunts me even more.
    What if I kill them—thanks to you and Zeus—
    how do I run from under their avengers?
    Show me the…†   (source)
  • His questioner perceiving that he was not likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly what it meant to rule the waves.†   (source)
  • 2 The sun was low in the west one winter day, When down a narrow aisle amid the thieves and outlaws of the land, (There by the hundreds seated, sear-faced murderers, wily counterfeiters, Gather'd to Sunday church in prison walls, the keepers round, Plenteous, well-armed, watching with vigilant eyes,) Calmly a lady walk'd holding a little innocent child by either hand, Whom seating on their stools beside her on the platform, She, first preluding with the instrument a low and musical…†   (source)
  • To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad.†   (source)
  • A thousand thoughts at once suggested themselves to him on the subject of this new adventure, and it struck him as being ill done and worse advised in him to expose himself to the danger of breaking his plighted faith to his lady; and said he to himself, "Who knows but that the devil, being wily and cunning, may be trying now to entrap me with a duenna, having failed with empresses, queens, duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses?†   (source)
  • Tartuffe, who uses his dupe to make a buck, Knows a hundred wily ways to pluck this duck; He rakes off great sums with his biblical bull And demands the right to censor us all.†   (source)
  • And there he was in great peril, for the giant was a wily fighter, but at last Sir Marhaus smote off his right arm above the elbow.†   (source)
  • The wily practices, and the covert ways, I knew them all, and I so plied their art that to the earth's end the sound went forth.†   (source)
  • For nothing art thou ware of the deceit Which that this fox y-shapen* hath to thee; *contrived His wily wrenches* thou not mayest flee.†   (source)
  • For by my father's soul, *as to my dome,* *in my judgement* Thou art a master when thou art at home; No poore cloisterer, nor no novice, But a governor, both wily and wise, And therewithal, of brawnes* and of bones, *sinews A right well-faring person for the nonce.†   (source)
  • And the Red Knight was a wily knight of war, and his wily fighting taught Sir Beaumains to be wise; but he abought it full sore or he did espy his fighting.†   (source)
  • Him after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native subtlety Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed, Doubt might beget of diabolick power Active within, beyond the sense of brute.†   (source)
  • But when he cometh to the strokes of his sword he is then noble and mighty, and that saw Sir Bleoberis and Sir Palomides, for wit ye well they are wily men of arms, and anon they know when they see a young knight by his riding, how they are sure to give him a fall from his horse or a great buffet.†   (source)
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