ISEE/SSAT Vocabulary BuilderWordsDdevious
ISEE/SSAThard
devious
Meaning: using clever but dishonest or underhanded methods
devious in a sentence
How devious is used in real sentences:
The con artist used a devious scheme to trick people out of their savings.
Her devious scheme to copy the answers went unnoticed until the teacher checked the handwriting.
“Critics alleged that some officers used devious election tactics, securing votes through secret favors, whereas defenders invoked recondite accounting customs intelligible mainly to specialists.”
— from the passage Beyond the Gates
“They used devious methods: meetings were announced too late for opponents to attend, while approvals were entered under misleading dates.”
— from the passage The Sealed County Papers
“A contractor also used devious bidding tactics, hiding maintenance costs in appendices so its proposal would appear cheaper than those of its rivals.”
— from the passage The Thawing Refuge
Synonyms for devious
Other words for devious — deceitful, cunning and underhanded — carry the same meaning.
- deceitful
- cunning
- underhanded
Antonyms of devious
Words that mean the opposite of devious:
- honest
- straightforward
Where it comes from
From Latin devius 'out of the way, off the straight path'
Word parts
- via — way; road
devious: de- (away from) + via (way) + -ous (having the quality of)
Memory hook
DE-VIOUS — think of straying from the obVIOUS honest path onto a hidden, tricky one.