Thesaurus
devious
adjective
Synonyms and Antonyms of DEVIOUS
1
clever at attaining one's ends by indirect and often deceptive means <we always left it to our most devious friends to find out the latest information>
Synonyms beguiling, cagey (also cagy), crafty, cunning, cute, designing, devious, dodgy [chiefly British], foxy, guileful, scheming, shrewd, slick, sly, subtle, tricky, wily
Related Words astute, facile, glib, sharp; crooked, deceitful, deceptive, dishonest, fraudulent, insinuating, knavish, Machiavellian, oblique, serpentine, shady, shifty, slippery, sneaky, treacherous, underhand, underhanded, unscrupulous; backhanded, double-dealing, hypocritical, insincere, left-handed, mealy, mealymouthed, smooth-tongued, two-faced; circuitous, circular, roundabout; clandestine, concealed, covert, furtive, hugger-mugger, secret, stealthy, surreptitious, undercover; calculating, plotting
Near Antonyms obvious, open, patent, plain, public, unconcealed; aboveboard, candid, direct, forthright, frank, honest, natural, outspoken, plainspoken, real, simple, sincere, straightforward, unaffected, unpretending, unpretentious, unvarnished; childlike, impressionable, simpleminded, unsophisticated, unworldly; unforced, unstudied; trustful, trusting
2
marked by a long series of irregular curves <a devious trail through the swampland>
Synonyms bending, crazy, curled, curling, curved, curving, curvy, devious, serpentine, sinuous, tortuous, twisted, twisting, winding, windy
Related Words zigzag, zigzagging; circling, coiled, coiling, corkscrew, looping, spiral, spiraling (or spiralling), swirling; circuitous, indirect, roundabout; meandering, rambling, wandering; irregular, jagged, uneven
Antonyms straight, straightaway
3
departing from some accepted standard of what is normal <her behavior is devious because of a developmental disorder>
Synonyms aberrant, aberrational, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, deviate, devious, irregular, unnatural, untypical
Related Words unrepresentative; extraordinary, preternatural; rare, uncommon, uncustomary, unusual, unwonted; bizarre, curious, far-out, funny, kinky, odd, outlandish, out-of-the-way, outré, peculiar, quaint, queer, queerish, quirky, remarkable, screwy, strange, wacky (also whacky), way-out, weird, wild; eccentric, freakish, idiosyncratic, nonconformist, unconventional, unorthodox; extraordinary, preternatural; rare, uncommon, uncustomary, unusual, unwonted; odd, peculiar, strange
Near Antonyms common, commonplace, everyday, familiar, ordinary, routine, run-of-the-mill, run-of-the-mine (or run-of-mine), unexceptional, unremarkable, workaday; customary, usual, wonted; archetypal (also archetypical), average, characteristic, representative
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