wily

C2+ Topic:Describing Qualities

US /ˈwaɪli/ UK /ˈwaɪli/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

adj
skilled at gaining an advantage through cunning or trickery

The wily fox slipped past every trap the farmer laid.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 adj · skilled at gaining an... cunning crafty sly shrewd artful schemingfoxy

Opposites

naive artless guileless ingenuous honest

Word family

Forms wiliness

Derived forms wiliness

Related forms wile guile

Etymology

From wile + -y; wile is from Middle English wile ('trick, stratagem'), probably from Old Norse vél ('trick, craft') or related to Old English wīġlian ('to practise divination').

wile Middle English vél Old Norse

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Describing Qualities Word Formation & Derivatives

External links

# wily

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** adj
**IPA (US):** /ˈwaɪli/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈwaɪli/

## Meanings
1. skilled at gaining an advantage through cunning or trickery

## Examples
- The wily fox slipped past every trap the farmer laid.

## Synonyms
- cunning
- crafty
- sly
- shrewd
- artful
- scheming
- foxy

## Antonyms
- naive
- artless
- guileless
- ingenuous
- honest

## Derived Forms
- wiliness

## Related Forms
- wile
- guile

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: wile
- Root: vél

## Etymology
From wile + -y; wile is from Middle English wile ('trick, stratagem'), probably from Old Norse vél ('trick, craft') or related to Old English wīġlian ('to practise divination').

## AI Etymology
wily comes from wile + -y; wile is from Middle English wile ('trick, stratagem'), probably from Old Norse vél ('trick, craft') or related to Old English wīġlian ('to practise divination'). Morphologically, the word is transparent: -y is attached to the older base named in the history, so the modern form packages an inherited or borrowed stem inside a later English derivative. In modern use, the adjective sense is "skilled at gaining an advantage through cunning or trickery", which keeps the etymology connected to the word's present dictionary value rather than treating it as a merely historical label. The wider word family includes related English forms such as wile, guile and derivatives such as wiliness, showing how the same base continues to support neighboring English vocabulary. The principal historical forms in the chain include Middle English wile, Old Norse vél, which anchor the explanation in named linguistic material.

## Topics
- Describing Qualities
- Word Formation & Derivatives

markdown