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Done with, and marked by, artful and dexterous secrecy; subtle; as, a sly trick. Envy works in a sly and imperceptible manner. I. Watts.

Tricky; deceptive; contemptible; as, a snide lawyer; snide goods. [Slang]

ther; as, a spellat the pumps; a spell at the masthead. A spell at the wheel isc called a trick. Ham. Nav. Encyc.

A certain game at cards in which, if no player wins three of the five tricks possible on any deal, the game is said to be spoiled.

duct; as, he spoke in a noble strain; there was a strain of woe in his story; a strain of trickery appears in his career. "A strain of gallantry." Sir W. Scott. Such take too high a strain at first. Bacon. The genius and strain of the book of Proverbs. Tillotson. It [Pilgrim's Progress] seems a novelty, and yet contain…

An artifice or trick in war for deceiving the enemy; hence, in general, artifice; deceptive device; secret plot; evil machination. Fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. Shak. Those oft are stratagems which error seem, Nor is it Homer nods, but we that dream. Pope.

; as, the plan proposed strikes me favorably; to strike one dead or blind. How often has stricken you dumb with his irony! Landor.

See Strickle.

Slyness in design; artifice; guile; a cunning design or artifice; a trick; subtlety. O full of all subtility and all mischief. Acts xiii. 10.

of all the cards on the board, and so removing them all; in whist, the winning of all the tricks (thirteen) in a hand; a slam.

A spot or stain; also, a trick. [Obs.] Sir T. Elyot.

boo frame or trellis hung at a door or window of a house, over which water is suffered to trickle, in order to moisten and cool the air as it enters. [India]

One who resorted to London during the law term only, in order to practice tricks, to carry on intrigues, or the like. [Obs.] [Written also termor.] B. Jonson.

i*ty, n. -- The*at"ric*al*ly, adv. No meretricious aid whatever has been called in -- no trick, no illusion of the eye, nothing theatrical. R. Jefferies.

A sleight-of-hand trick played with three small cups, shaped like thimbles, and a small ball or little pea.

One who cheats by thimblerigging, or tricks of legerdemain.

A kind of backgammon played both with men and pegs; tricktrack. A game at ticktack with words. Milton.

One who toys; one who is full of trifling tricks; a trifler.

A turning; a trick; a subterfuge. [Obs.] To work, or solve, a traverse (Naut.), to reduce a series of courses or distances to an equivalent single one; to calculate the resultant of a traverse. -- Traverse board (Naut.), a small board hung in the steerage, having the points of the compass marked on it, and for each po…

Guile; trickery. [Obs.] Rom. of R.