【Sly】 , 【cunning】 , 【crafty】 , 【tricky】 , 【foxy】 , 【insidious】 , 【wily】 , 【guileful】 , 【artful】 are comparable when they mean having or showing a disposition to attain one's ends by devious or indirect means.
【Sly】 implies a lack of candor which shows itself in secretiveness, in suggestiveness rather than in frankness, in underhandedness, or in furtiveness or duplicity in one's dealings with others.
More often than the remaining words, 【sly】 is used with weakened force to imply a lightly arch or roguish quality.
【Cunning】 (see also CLEVER 2 ) stresses the use of intelligence in overreaching or circumventing; nevertheless, it often suggests 【sly】 inventiveness rather than a high-grade mentality, and a perverted sense of morality.
【Crafty】 also implies a use of intelligence but it usually suggests a higher order of mentality than 【cunning】 : that of one capable of devising stratagems and adroit in deception.
【Tricky】 usually suggests unscrupulousness and chicanery in dealings with others; in general it connotes shiftiness and unreliability rather than skill in deception or in maneuvering.
【Foxy】 implies shrewdness in dodging discovery or in practicing deceptions so that one may follow one's own devices or achieve one's own ends; it usually connotes experience and is rarely applied to the young or to novices.
【Insidious】 suggests a lying in wait or a gradualness of effect or approach and applies especially to devious and carefully masked underhandedness.
【Wily】 and 【guileful】 stress an attempt to ensnare or entrap; they usually imply treacherous astuteness or sagacity and a lack of scruples regarding the means to one's end.
【Artful】 implies insinuating or alluring indirectness of dealing; it usually also connotes sophistication or coquetry or clever designs.
