What's the difference between cunning and wily?

Cunning


Definition:

  • (a.) Knowing; skillful; dexterous.
  • (a.) Wrought with, or exhibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work.
  • (a.) Crafty; sly; artful; designing; deceitful.
  • (a.) Pretty or pleasing; as, a cunning little boy.
  • (a.) Knowledge; art; skill; dexterity.
  • (a.) The faculty or act of using stratagem to accomplish a purpose; fraudulent skill or dexterity; deceit; craft.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But the Franco-British spat sparked by Dave's rejection of Angela and Nicolas's cunning plan to save the euro has been given wings by news the US credit agencies may soon strip France of its triple-A rating and is coming along very nicely, thank you. "
  • (2) According to his blog, he's been acting on the advice of a friend and pursuing a course of "silence, exile and cunning", but I'm not sure a couple of years of not giving interviews to Heat qualifies.
  • (3) "They are alert, cunning and devious individuals who have current knowledge of investigative methods and techniques which may be used against them," said an internal report.
  • (4) 3.16pm BST Myners explains that his solution is a PLC-plus board -- a highly qualified board, holding the executive to account, complemented by a national council who is charged with checking that the board is doing what it should ( acting like shareholders, effectively ) He denies that it's a cunning plan to get his friends onto the Co-op board.
  • (5) The SNP minority government at Holyrood after 2007 survived from day to day by cunning deals that played the other parties off against one another.
  • (6) In fact, not only have the teams that failed to qualify not been invited to play, for if they were that would contradict the elitist terms of the qualification that are disavowed so cunningly here by Pitbull, but also in reality, only Fifa functionaries, Brazilian bureaucrats and half the BBC will get into Brazil's stadiums gratis this summer.
  • (7) The capacity of urea-N synthesis (CUNS), the galactose elimination capacity (GEC) and the antipyrine clearance (APC) were measured in rats immediately after 30, 70 and 90% partial hepatectomy and after sham operation.
  • (8) 1980 was his best year for opera: the Cologne company (whose music director, John Pritchard, became a staunch supporter) brought Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and Cimarosa's Il Matrimonio Segreto, Glasgow provided Berg's Wozzeck and Janacek's The Cunning Little Vixen, and the festival itself produced a distinguished world premiere in Maxwell Davies' The Lighthouse.
  • (9) In it she explains how she scratched the graffito "My French teacher is a cun-" on a door, and was stopped just as she finished that crucial "t".)
  • (10) Putin is a cunning negotiator with the skills of a KGB colonel, varying between brute force, charm and obfuscation.
  • (11) He added that the core message from Pyongyang was that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service was using the reptiles “as part of a ‘cunning scheme’ to challenge our unity”.
  • (12) It needed stamina, ice-in-the-veins bravery, cunning, cool judgment and brute determination.
  • (13) So much so that he ends the press conference with the point, and has a little smile at his own cunning.
  • (14) Running at the visiting defence, N’Doye produced a cunning disguise pass that the Croat Jelavic took in his stride and dispatched past Brad Guzan via a looping deflection.
  • (15) Only Eurovision could offer up such a song: a plea for ethnic tolerance, cunningly disguised as an Abba track with the offcuts from a pantomime.
  • (16) Anyway, back to these fraudsters, who are the least costly element of a leaky system, but nevertheless transfix the political imagination as though they were masterminds of cunning and audacity, whose long game were to destroy the fabric of society altogether.
  • (17) Steve Hilton's cunning plan to abolish all consumer, employment and maternity rights got a dusty answer, while his green passions are at least tolerated.
  • (18) Former schemes were tiny but this one is mammoth, the debt kept cunningly off the public borrowing books (which the Office for National Statistics allowed; it's said the Treasury was amazed).
  • (19) It turned out that the Square Mile is cunningly designed so as to have almost nowhere for such groups to gather, so the protesters ended up by the skirts of St Paul's.
  • (20) Undercover underwear What do you do when you develop a cunning remote-monitoring system to track soldiers’ performance in the field, but they don’t want to wear a clumsy chest strap, or forget to wear the wristband?

Wily


Definition:

  • (superl.) Full of wiles, tricks, or stratagems; using craft or stratagem to accomplish a purpose; mischievously artful; subtle.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They could go out and trade for a pitcher such as the New York Mets’ Bartolo Colón , an obvious choice despite his 41 years, but he would come with an $11m price tag for next season and have to pass through the waiver wires process first – considering the wily mood Billy Beane is in this year, the A’s could be the team that blocks such a move.
  • (2) A wily character, he initially refused, saying the deadline was impossible.
  • (3) Noted for his Savile Row suits and languid charm, he was nevertheless a tough and wily reporter in the field, using his wits to escape death on more than one occasion.
  • (4) The News of the World said it was £750,000 ("Wily Vanessa teamed up with PR to the stars Max Clifford and the pound signs began rolling in her eyes," its reporter claimed).
  • (5) on Saturday the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott summed up the feelings of many in the party when he suggested that the "wily" Tories had deliberately used their coalition partners as shields to deflect public anger.
  • (6) Scotland shows how that can give an illusion of success which will evaporate at the moment of choice, especially when up against a wily and ruthless incumbent.
  • (7) The wily Brazilian, managing in a record sixth World Cup, said he would make "one, maybe two" changes to the starting line‑up.
  • (8) Wily and smart, she is more than a match for the suitors who attempt to claim her in his absence; and she is no pushover, either, when Odysseus finally turns up.
  • (9) Opinion polls in recent months have repeatedly shown that Tsvangirai's popularity has been hurt by divisions within the opposition and his own scandalous love-life , putting him and Mugabe neck-and-neck, with the wily president even edging in front on occasion.
  • (10) Harradine was a wily negotiator and kept Howard guessing on his support for the goods and services tax.
  • (11) Team spirit might be an ethereal quality that is difficult to quantify on scoreboards and league tables but Karanka has given confidence to the players he inherited, been a wily transfer dealer, particularly this season with the loan signings of the strikers Patrick Bamford and Jelle Vossen, and brought through young home-grown players from the club’s academy, such as Ben Gibson and Adam Reach, who are now integral members of the squad.
  • (12) But out of nothing, Frank Farina's men were awarded a penalty just before half-time won by the wily Del Piero.
  • (13) Guns, gates and guards can only provide so much protection against a wily, creative adversary who is willing to risk oblivion.
  • (14) The wily old tease may have been mugging for the studio audience, lapping up the howls of disappointment that no doubt followed such a statement.
  • (15) A blizzard of visual sexual signifiers – fake nails, big hair, Dita Von Teese figure balanced on impossibly high stilts – and her "Jessica Rabbit sex appeal" (again, self-proclaimed) belies a wily business brain.
  • (16) Wily Ukraine national coach Oleg Blokhin also tasted victory in court after he was forced to resign from the position because of his other job, as a Ukrainian MP.
  • (17) He flew to Brazil hoping to bring him back, but he had underestimated the wily Biggs whose girlfriend, Raimunda, announced that she was expecting his child.
  • (18) Wily David Carney chalked one up for the nay-saying ageists by outfoxing youngster Thomas Deng to execute a superb run and finish, one which was harder than it may have seemed.
  • (19) After Cantor fell, McCarthy showed himself a wily tactician, coming fast out of the block and letting it be known he was the heir apparent with the necessary votes, all but sealing the majority leader race within 48 hours.
  • (20) So, when browsing, an open mind is far more effective than knowing exactly what you want – eBay works topically, so avoid anything worn by Kate Middleton and all high-street capsule collections, eg last week's Versace line for H&M, which wily types bought en masse and are currently reselling at marked-up prices.