What's the difference between shifty and sly?

Shifty


Definition:

  • (a.) Full of, or ready with, shifts; fertile in expedients or contrivance.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lucas’s surname is Madikane ; ultra-conservative Brian was shifty around the couple.
  • (2) Across town via Royston Vasey, Steve Pemberton is Kevin Weatherill, a man colluding with some shifty types to kidnap his boss's daughter.
  • (3) There was Nick Griffin himself, described by my self-selected group of Twitter friends as: "incoherent", "shifty", an "arse" and more.
  • (4) Such process of "archaeology" seems to be the only suitable to supply us the cipher-key of the ambiguous, shifty character of oxygen, and entrust us with a cultural patrimony being unique as it is spendable in an immediate clinical future.
  • (5) The war's growing unpopularity meant there was less tolerance for shifty allies like Karzai perceived to have a foot in both camps.
  • (6) This suggests that the "shifty" tRNAs proposed by Jacks et al.
  • (7) This overlap region includes a "shifty" heptanucleotide, followed by a highly structured region that may contain a pseudoknot.
  • (8) In the case of one shifty sequence, frameshifting promoted by lysyl-tRNA limitation occurs at the sequence AAG C and is due to rightward movement of the ribosome so as to read the AGC triplet overlapping the hungry codon from the right.
  • (9) Another recent critics' favourite which might not have got a look-in elsewhere is Eran Creevy's Shifty, a fusion of kitchen-sink drama and urban crime thriller.
  • (10) One of the parallels between August 2007 and August 2011 is the shiftiness of those running the show, a sense that they are not letting on all they know for fear of creating more panic.
  • (11) 12.37pm: The Guardian's deputy editor, Ian Katz , has just tweeted: Cameron looking staggeringly shifty about extent to which he discussed Coulson appointment with Rebekah Brooks #Leveson — ian katz (@iankatz1000) June 14, 2012 12.39pm: Cameron says he asked Coulson about phone hacking in a face-to-face meeting in the Norman Shaw building in Westminster, at which he sought assurances from Coulson.
  • (12) The presence of a "shifty" heptanucleotide sequence in this region and a downstream RNA pseudoknot structure indicate that ORF1b is probably expressed by ribosomal frameshifting.
  • (13) Self-regarding, clever, shifty Boris must be counted among those many voters who have said since Friday: “I only voted leave because I assumed remain would win.” He deserves to be made to sweep up the glass after the Brexit party, but it’s not his style.
  • (14) He tries to look and sound sincere, and perhaps he is; but he comes across all the same as rather nervous and shifty.
  • (15) In almost all cases a stable hairpin was predicted four to nine nucleotides downstream of the shifty heptanucleotide.
  • (16) Dare I ask the bookseller (who has probably recognised the shifty look in my eyes) if not, why not?
  • (17) They still loved him as they never loved Tony Blair, who also got stuck with the shifty label.
  • (18) This is not a strong, confident government, it is a shifty, grubby regime, tin-eared to the views of our friends and brainwashed by the Ukip world view.
  • (19) He certainly came across as an uninspiring and slightly shifty bureaucrat, concerned more about his ambitions than anything else – but, then again, that’s pretty much the persona with which we’re familiar from his parliamentary career.
  • (20) The lavender, reclining on a chaise longue is looking shifty and smoking a cigarette.

Sly


Definition:

  • (v. t.) Dexterous in performing an action, so as to escape notice; nimble; skillful; cautious; shrewd; knowing; -- in a good sense.
  • (v. t.) Artfully cunning; secretly mischievous; wily.
  • (v. t.) Done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy; subtle; as, a sly trick.
  • (v. t.) Light or delicate; slight; thin.
  • (adv.) Slyly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) High pressure liquid chromatography combined with radioimmunoassay showed marked heterogeneity of SPLI and SLI.
  • (2) Evidence of the industrial panic surfaced at Digital Britain when Sly Bailey, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, suggested that national newspaper websites that chased big online audiences have "devalued news" , whatever that might mean.
  • (3) "It is incredibly hard work," she says with a sly grin.
  • (4) The concentration of somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) was determined by specific radioimmunoassay in the cerebroventricular fluid of patients with tumours of the basal midline and compared to findings in patients with multiple sclerosis.
  • (5) These neurons are known to also contain somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI).
  • (6) "Everyone calls him the Socialist Worker Padre," one bland senior cleric told me with a sly and dismissive laugh.
  • (7) Minimal pairs differing only in the voicing feature of the initial consonant were produced by four SLI and four language-matched NL children.
  • (8) We studied the effect of tetrahydroaminoacridine (THA) on cerebrospinal fluid somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (CSF-SLI) in probable Alzheimer disease (AD) patients (n = 20) who took part in an open THA treatment trial.
  • (9) The characteristics of children with specific language impairment (SLI) attending four language units in the north-west of England are examined.
  • (10) This work was undertaken to study the effect of glucose on pancreaticoduodenal and peripheral venous somatostatin-like immunoreactivity (SLI) levels in dogs.
  • (11) Sly, underhanded, contemptuous, mendacious, double-dealing, cheating democracy.
  • (12) Grigson is clearly relishing the task ahead, having already toured major investors and playing a key role in the pay dispute, which ultimately resulted in Sly Bailey stepping down after a decade running the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, People and 140 regional newspapers late on Thursday.
  • (13) The most conspicuous feature of the elution profiles was the preponderance of the peak coeluting with synthetic somatostatin-14, whereas the peaks comigrating with synthetic somatostatin-28 and attributable to precursor-like SLI represented only minor or trace amounts of total immunoreactivity.
  • (14) Yet the whole thing was sly and subversive, for it whispered, see, see what you have been missing.
  • (15) The provision of structure in the form of thematically related toy sets, instructions, and modeling did not reduce the discrepancy between demonstrated play behaviors of toddlers with SLI-E and their normally developing peers.
  • (16) SLI levels were found to be significantly lower on day 4 after delivery, compared to 3-4 months later.
  • (17) There was a weak but statistically significant correlation between SLI values in CSF and neuropsychological test scores.
  • (18) The ME was microdissected for determination of SLI content.
  • (19) Sly Bailey, the chief executive of Trinity Mirror, said that the company made £25m in savings and would have increased adjusted operating profits year-on-year if not for a £22m rise in newsprint prices.
  • (20) A great interindividual variation in SLI levels was observed (a range of 0.02 to 5.30 nanograms per milligram of weight).

Words possibly related to "shifty"