What's the difference between shrewd and sly?

Shrewd


Definition:

  • (superl.) Inclining to shrew; disposing to curse or scold; hence, vicious; malicious; evil; wicked; mischievous; vexatious; rough; unfair; shrewish.
  • (superl.) Artful; wily; cunning; arch.
  • (superl.) Able or clever in practical affairs; sharp in business; astute; sharp-witted; sagacious; keen; as, a shrewd observer; a shrewd design; a shrewd reply.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The crucial additional feature of his nature, however, was that the apparently guileless charm was accompanied by a razor-sharp shrewdness.
  • (2) The brewer does not think the pipeline will pay back in less than 20 years, but it appears to be a shrewd commercial move.
  • (3) From child migrants to the doctors’ dispute, principled compromise should be the mantra of the shrewd politician.
  • (4) Wilson, though, quick to adopt new personas, and adapt to new circumstances, adored the attention, and shrewdly exploited his role as local minor celebrity when it came to what he was really interested in - helping Manchester to recreate itself as a major city, with its radical, inventive and progressive traditions intact.
  • (5) She pursued many reforms with energy, intelligence and political shrewdness.
  • (6) Raynor, however, had shrewdly appreciated what England's tactically naive Walter Winterbottom had disastrously not; that it was Hidegkuti, in his deep-lying position, who made the Hungarian wheels turn.
  • (7) Most of his £3bn is based on his shrewd purchase of BHS in 2000.
  • (8) There were occasional bursts of vivacity: the comment, when the Tory government economised on a booster station for the BBC World Service, that "Nation shall murmur unto nation"; shrewd opposition to entry into the ERM "at an unsustainable rate"; and an early warning to Nigel Lawson, in 1988, of the looming economic crisis.
  • (9) He remained an admirably efficient analyst of certain plays and human motivation, and a shrewd guide for those in search of something to go to.
  • (10) He admitted that he has "some big decisions to make" but was too shrewd to act on the spur of the moment, when his mind was still clouded with a disappointment that will linger for a long while yet.
  • (11) But there is a proviso: the region's youth bulge came hand-in-hand with high-quality education that prepared a generation for the marketplace – as well as shrewd economic policies that widened that marketplace in the first place.
  • (12) A shrewd former military officer, Sarkisian, 61, has been in charge of the small landlocked nation of 2.9 million since winning a vote in 2008.
  • (13) Acute came from acus , Latin for needle, later denoting pointed things, so cute at first meant “acute, clever, keen-witted, sharp, shrewd”, according to the 1933 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which doesn’t suggest the term could describe visual appearance.
  • (14) After repeated failures to clear Cairo’s city centre of street vendors … the Cairo governorate issued a shrewd decree,” wrote Abdelrahman, in an article she published last year.
  • (15) Aided by shrewd trading on capital markets, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs produced strong results this week but Citigroup and Bank of America , both of which have required huge injections of government money for survival, have struggled.
  • (16) Turnover Crystal Palace Accounts of CPFC 2010 Ltd for the year to 30 June 2015 • Ownership Steve Parish and US investors David Blitzer and Joshua Harris control the holding company; individual stakes not disclosed • Turnover 14th highest in League £102m , up from £90m in 2014 • Income Gate and match-day income £10m; Broadcasting & FA and PL income £80m; Sponsorship & advertising £4m; Commercial £5m; Other income £4m • Wage bill 15th highest in League £68m , up from £46m in 2014 • Wages as proportion of turnover 67% • Profit before tax £8m , following £23m profit in 2014 • Net debt £0 (£18m cash in bank) • Interest payable £0 • Highest-paid director No directors were paid State they are in: Palace finished 10th in 2014-15, maintaining their bounce under the shrewd stewardship of Steve Parish and his three fellow investors, all lifelong fans, who bought the club out of administration in 2010.
  • (17) Meanwhile, something’s afoot in the wind at Víctor’s old club, as Barcelona are looking at renewing the contracts of Leo Messi and Neymar , having shrewdly spotted they’re both decent.
  • (18) The recruitment document said, however, that a permanent secretary "balances ministers' or high-level stakeholders' immediate needs or priorities with the long-term aims of their department, being shrewd about what needs to be sacrificed, at what costs and what the implications might be".
  • (19) For a man who’s often considered a shrewd politician, David Cameron lets his government slide into an extraordinary number of damaging and unnecessary conflicts.
  • (20) A large man with a rumpled shirt, snowy beard and hair pulled into a ponytail, the commissioner resembles a hippy Santa Claus but is a tough, shrewd operator.

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).

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