weaselly

English

Alternative forms

• weasely

Etymology

weasel +‎ -y

Adjective

weaselly (comparative more weaselly or weasellier, superlative most weaselly or weaselliest)

1. Resembling a weasel (in appearance).
   • 1857, George Borrow, The Romany Rye‎, 2nd edition, London: John Murray, published 1858, Volume 2, Appendix, Chapter 11, p. 359:

     The writer had just entered into his eighteenth year, when he met at the table of a certain Anglo-Germanist an individual, apparently somewhat under thirty, of middle stature, a thin and weaselly figure, a sallow complexion, a certain obliquity of vision, and a large pair of spectacles.

   • 1942, Agatha Christie, chapter 6, in The Body in the Library‎, New York: Pocket Books, published 1965, page 54:

     “Pretty?”
     […] Mr. Prestcott considered. “Fair to middling. Bit weaselly, if you know what I mean. Wouldn’t have been much without makeup. As it was, she managed to look quite attractive.”

   • 1956, Ian Fleming, chapter 13, in Diamonds Are Forever, London: Pan Books, published 1958:

     At three minutes past six the door opened to admit the naked, scrawny figure of Tingaling Bell. He had a sharp weasely face and a miserable body on which each bone showed.

   • 1996, Will Self, The Sweet Smell of Psychosis, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, →ISBN:

     On still weasellier, greasier members of the clique.

   • 2009, Sean Beaudoin, Fade to Blue, New York, N.Y., Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, published 2011, →ISBN:

     I lifted the extension, slowly released the button, easing in mid-ring like the weaselliest weasel.

   • 2011, Othniel Smith, Yer Blues, →ISBN:

     He looks like a shorter, thinner, weasellier version of Tom Jones, and he sure knows how to work a crowd.

   • 2015, John Irving, chapter 1, in Avenue of Mysteries, Canada: Knopf:

     That was when the constantly complaining but unseen dog showed itself, if it was actually a dog. The weaselly little creature crawled out from under the couch—more rodential than canine, Pepe thought.

   • 2016, Ian Murray-Watson, A Stitch in Time, Matador, →ISBN, page 20:

     More members arrive. […] Lucifer, small and fat and weasellier (e.g. more like a weasel) than ever, and a few other nonentities whose names Fricka can never remember.

2. Devious; cunning; misleading; sneaky.
   • 1864, W. S. Gilbert, “Sixty-Three and Sixty-Four” originally published in Fun, V (2 January 1864), p. 162, later published in Bab Ballads, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1970, p. 37,

     With intellect weaselly, artist has easily earned all his bacon and greens by it,

     And now that it’s done and all ready for Fun, it’s my duty to say what he means by it.

   • 1927, John Masefield, The Midnight Folk‎, London: Heinemann, page 221:

     “Ah was vara weaselly. Ah wasna going home without yon stoof for Captain Harker. Vara coonning ah was.”

   • 1947, William B. King, Frank O’Brien, chapter 19, in The Balkans: Frontier of Two Worlds‎, New York: Knopf, page 239:

     Menemencioglu could see no good reason why this weasely document should not be interpreted so as to keep Turkey out of a war in which he and the other Turkish leaders were convinced she could do no better than be uselessly crushed […]

   • 1967, Richard Lockridge, chapter 2, in With Option to Die‎, Philadelphia: Lippincott, page 30:

     “There’s a poem I like,” Harry said. “By Robert Graves. About cats. Cats, he says, make their point by walking round it. It’s all right for cats. For humans, as you say—weaselly. Why don’t they come out with it?”

   • 1997 August 31, Jeff Cox, “Legacy of the yahoos”, in Standard-Speaker, Hazleton, Pa., page C1:

     It was one of the strangest elections I have ever witnessed, even odder than the 1988 presidential race, when two yahoos named George Bush and Michael Dukakis ended what Hunter S. Thompson declared “The Generation of Swine” by conducting the weaselliest, most vacuous, idealess campaign in the nation’s history.

   • 2000, Simon McVeigh, “The Society of British Musicians (1834–1865) and the Campaign for Native Talent”, in Christina Bashford, Leanne Langley, editors, Music and British Culture 1785–1914: Essays in Honour of Cyril Ehrlich, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 147:

     Charles Lucas received the most weaselly rejection, the directors hoping they might be able to programme his symphony, but adding that they ‘would by no means wish to prevent his so doing elsewhere’.

   • 2004, Jan Carr, The Elf of Union Square, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →ISBN, page 56:

     “Rat-faced. Never trust a reporter. They’re weasellier than rodents!”

   • 2008 July 17, Mike Strobel, “Like Old West horse thieves: As gas prices rise, fuel rustlers are out there riding the range”, in The Kingston Whig-Standard, page 5:

     So gas rustlers are the horse thieves of the 21st century. The weaselliest are the pump-and-run variety. They strike even in broad daylight. They fill ’er up, then skedaddle without paying.

   • 2009 February 11, Maureen Dowd, “Trillion Dollar Baby”, in New York Times‎:

     There’s a weaselly feel to the plan, a sense that tough decisions were postponed even as President Obama warns about our “perfect storm of financial problems.”

   • 2017 August 23, Carolyn Hax, “Man and daughter won’t make up”, in Appeal Tribune‎, volume 136, number 36:

     If the prompting is necessary, email (or text) is arguably the worst, weaselliest possible way to do it.

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