(a.) Out of a straight line; winding; varying from directness; as, a devious path or way.
(a.) Going out of the right or common course; going astray; erring; wandering; as, a devious step.
Example Sentences:
(1) Cholecystectomy provided successful treatment in three of the four patients but the fourth was too ill to undergo an operation; in general, definitive treatment is cholecystectomy, together with excision of the fistulous tract if this takes a direct path through the abdominal wall from the gallbladder, or curettage if the course is devious.
(2) He told the court: “We have been trying at the bar to imagine whether we can think of any other group of legal or natural persons, terrorist suspects, arms dealers, Jews, in respect of whose evidence one might even begin to think that one could tenably say, ‘Well, of course, in looking at this evidence I have been very careful because I know from the past that these people are a bit devious and a bit unworthy, and the only thing they’re really interested in is subverting public health.’ ” Yet last week’s judgment, running to 1,000 paragraphs, confirmed in excoriating detail just how determined big tobacco has been down the decades to achieve precisely this goal.
(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) In the interim, Gough had also played a devious old friend of the Doctor – by now, Peter Davison – in the 1983 story Arc of Infinity.
(5) Ideally they should also possess the sort of clipped tones that make vulgarities sound like Virgil and the sort of wardrobe that dresses up deviousness as a gentleman's sport.
(6) You're a devious villain conducting the perfect crime, like the dashing guest star in the opening scene of a classic Columbo.
(7) This is in part due to planned obsolescence – a devious ploy by manufacturers bolstered by marketing strategies to make us fall out of love with a product hastily.
(8) In the maximum likelihood (ML) method for estimating a molecular phylogenetic tree, the pattern of nucleotide substitutions for computing likelihood values is assumed to be simpler than that of the actual evolutionary process, simply because the process, considered to be quite devious, is unknown.
(9) But all of these arguments, Anderson implied, fell on deaf ears because of what he called the “myth of tobacco exceptionalism” – the view that manufacturers are “uniquely devious”.
(10) "While millions of working people are either without work, or having their pay frozen or slashed, Britain's boardrooms are finding even more devious ways to squeeze even more cash from their companies," said the general secretary, Len McCluskey.
(11) But, at heart, Harper’s team are not that different from politicians across the developed world who have discovered that democracy is a pretty sweet theory but that, in reality, if you want to get hold of power and use it, there are all kinds of devious moves available that have very little to do with that antique idea.
(12) These presentations of the devious ease with which the Vatican dissembles also clearly serve as a metaphor for the Catholic church’s unwillingness to address the scandals of priestly paedophilia.
(13) They can change their name but it’s the same thing – if people are wise, they will see it is the devious politics of the hard left.” In response to complaints about the email, a Corbyn campaign spokesman said: “At this crucial time for our party and our country, it is essential that we bring Labour together.
(14) During the trial's closing arguments Donald's lawyer, Max Blecher, accused Shelly of an "unconscionable", "devious" and "invidious" scheme to strip him of the Clippers.
(15) There aren’t enough Trotskyists, entryists, devious Tories and random renegades to explain such an overwhelming victory.
(16) The mining magnate says Brough, who is contesting former Speaker Peter Slipper's Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher, has been devious over the James Ashby affair.
(17) In the UK, the doughty chair of the public accounts committee, Margaret Hodge, investigating Google for tax avoidance has denounced the firm as "devious", "calculating … and manipulating".
(18) The 12 Years a Slave star is perhaps Lee’s most high-profile find , but others who have found success from the Showcases include Randall Park who stars in the upcoming series Fresh off the Boat, as well as Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, Chadwick Boseman (42) and Dania Ramirez (Devious Maids).
(19) The book described Charles’s court as so riven by infighting that it is known by insiders as “Wolf Hall”, after Hilary Mantel’s fictional portrayal of Thomas Cromwell’s devious machinations on behalf of King Henry VIII.
(20) The model stipulates that given exposure to sustained aversive maternal control and a maternal communication style which is subtle and devious, the child comes to adapt with approach, stratagem-based behaviours and heightened vigilance for evaluative information (i.e.
Weasel
Definition:
(n.) Any one of various species of small carnivores belonging to the genus Putorius, as the ermine and ferret. They have a slender, elongated body, and are noted for the quickness of their movements and for their bloodthirsty habit in destroying poultry, rats, etc. The ermine and some other species are brown in summer, and turn white in winter; others are brown at all seasons.
Example Sentences:
(1) Brown weasels and white animals undergoing the spring change to the brown pelage and reproductive activity molted, grew a new white coat, and became reproductively quiescent after treatment.
(2) It is suggested that the pineal gland product, melatonin, initiates changes in the central nervous system and endocrines which result in molting, growth of the white winter pelage, and reproductive quiescence in the weasel.
(3) He said: “We regret if our reporting led anyone to mistakenly assume that the ABC supported the asylum seekers’ claims.” Johnston said: “The good men and women of the Australian navy have been maliciously maligned by the ABC, and I am very dissatisfied of the very weasel words of apology that have been floated around.” “I have not said much because, I have to confess, I was extremely angry.
(4) While, today, none of us would take seriously politicians who bandy such weasel words about, these were quite the thing in the 60s.
(5) Their job involves eradicating animals that might want to eat these small game birds: foxes, stoats, weasels and, in the days when it was legal to do so, birds of prey.
(6) South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was happy to go back on his weasel words of last week and congratulate Haley.
(7) So, until we see the parties at Westminster supporting and calling for the unity of the Irish people, we can only believe that the great calls of Cameron, Miliband and Clegg to the Scottish people are just weasel words intended to gull them into accepting the Westminster unionists’ status quo.
(8) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.
(9) Two short-tailed weasels tremored slightly within 10 min of arousal.
(10) To call Hoxha “tough” is more than a bit of a weasel word.
(11) They are members of the otter, badger and weasel family (the mustelids), that are at home both on the ground and in the trees.
(12) Paragonimus kellicotti Ward, 1908 was recovered from 16 of 105 mink (Mustela vison), 14 of 244 striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), 10 of 446 red foxes (Vulpes vulpes), 1 of 31 coyotes (Canis latrans), 0 of 326 raccoons (Procyon lotor) and 0 of 8 weasels (Mustela spp.)
(13) Muscular sarcosporidiosis is reported for the first time in the common European weasel, Mustela nivalis.
(14) Mike Pence’s weasel-speak in defense of Indiana’s RFRA wasn’t the political mistake.
(15) At a town hall in Willingboro, New Jersey, MacArthur was branded a “weasel”, a “killer” and an “idiot”.
(16) But a new managerialism – already familiar in universities and post-Kennett reforms – has infected the community sector, with weasel words its most obvious symptom.
(17) A 5 min exposure to the weasel elicited an analgesic response of longer duration (15-30 min) that was sensitive to both naloxone and the benzodiazepine agonist and antagonist.
(18) Over lunch, Clements is cheerful, charming and fizzing with ideas, so it is surprising to learn that colleagues once labelled him a "little weasel" and worse in a court case.
(19) - Victor Klemperer, 13 June 1934 We're fed this inert this lying phrase like comfort food as another little Palestinian boy in trainers jeans and a white teeshirt is gunned down by the Zionist SS whose initials we should - but we don't - dumb goys - clock in that weasel word crossfire
(20) However, the fence was only 2 feet (0.6 meter) high and did not stop the entrance of foxes, weasels, shrews, or avian predators.