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Tricky   /trˈɪki/   Listen
Tricky

adjective
1.
Not to be trusted.  Synonym: slippery.
2.
Having concealed difficulty.  Synonym: catchy.  "A tricky recipe to follow"
3.
Marked by skill in deception.  Synonyms: crafty, cunning, dodgy, foxy, guileful, knavish, slick, sly, tricksy, wily.  "Deep political machinations" , "A foxy scheme" , "A slick evasive answer" , "Sly as a fox" , "Tricky Dick" , "A wily old attorney"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tricky" Quotes from Famous Books



... twilight had deepened into darkness, the fire had died down, and the corners of the room were filled with mysterious tricky shadows that danced with the flickering flames on the hearth. Jean looked fearfully over her shoulder. There was a creepy feeling in the back of her neck, and Jock's eyes were as round as door-knobs. ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... all who saw the contest. He was sometimes fairly puzzled by the clever heading of Mr. Campbell and the terrible tackling of Mr. Arnott, but fought gamely to the last. In close dribbling he was the nearest approach to Mr. William M'Kinnon (Q.P.) I have ever seen, and while he was quite as tricky, wanted the tact to lead an opponent astray. He ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone

... goods man, sailing on our old tack of conversation, "sometimes makes it hard for us, you know. I once had a case like this: One of my customers down in New Orleans had failed on me. I think his muhulla (failure) was forced upon him. Even a tricky merchant does not bring failure upon himself if business is good and he can help it, because, if he has ever been through one, he knows that the bust-up does him a great deal more harm than good. It makes 'credit' hard for him after that. But, you find lots of merchants who, ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson

... set himself to misunderstand it. He may at least understand what Jefferson and Lincoln meant, and he may possibly find some assistance in this task by reading what they said. He may realise that equality is not some crude fairy tale about all men being equally tall or equally tricky; which we not only cannot believe but cannot believe in anybody believing. It is an absolute of morals by which all men have a value invariable and indestructible and a dignity as intangible as death. He may at least ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... the roguish Italian barber, no longer an intriguing bachelor but a jealous bridegroom. Merry Melodious MOZART! Old-fashioned he may be, like not a few of the best melodies and the best stories. Elegant Countess is Madame EMMA EAMES. Can she possibly ever have been Rosina, Dr. Bartolo's tricky ward! What a change matrimony makes in some folks! Old Dr. Bartolo bears not much resemblance to the other Dr. Bartolo, and Don Basilio, a kind of Ecclesiastical lawyer, is quite a rollicking wag as compared with the Basilio of the Barber of Seville. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 9, 1892 • Various

... Raoul was brave, he would have sacrificed his life, like a fool; I had to make him cold and domineering, and to dispel from his mind, one by one, his exalted ideas of life; to render him suspicious and tricky as—an old bill-broker, while all the while he knew not who I was. And at this moment love has broken down the whole scaffolding. He should have been great; now, he can only be happy. I shall therefore retire to live in a corner at the height of his prosperity; his happiness ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... needn't get het up about it," said he; "I hain't to blame no matter whose daughter she wasn't. She can travel with me any time she wants to. Kind of a toppy, fast-goin', tricky little rip, with ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... than known,—that there is a queer strain of mysticism in Gorman. His arid common sense, his politics, his rhetoric, his tricky money-making, are the outside, visible things about him. Behind them, deep down, seldom seen, is a strange, emotional love for his country. When Ascher spoke as he did about the claim of patriotism Gorman understood. ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham

... bay on which we were embarked was a water empire, fair to the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie Islands that we had just ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith

... I wisht there was, lad," the sergeant answered soberly. "Pass me up me rifle, like a good b'y, forinst we start! I see be the black-and-gold button on me ar-rmy mule thot he's a Landstrumer, an' they's tricky ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... have built out a shoal which, if you remember your chart, you will recall juts out in the bay over nine miles from the land. The same tides had scoured Smith's Island on the other hand—port side going out of the bay, but there are some nasty rocks in the channel. It's a tricky spot, that Smith's Point Shoal, and many a good vessel has gone to pieces ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... 'seventies, and indeed Mr. Durant's evangelical protestantism might not have relished the parallel. Boston seems, for the most part, to have averted its eyes from the spectacle of the brilliant, possibly unscrupulous, some said tricky, lawyer bringing souls to Christ. But he did bring them. We are told that "The halls and churches where he spoke were crowded. The training and experience which had made him so successful a pleader before ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... firmly, "these tricky ways do not suit me. Monsieur Arbillot proposed yesterday that I should do what you advise. He even offered to inform this gentleman of my relationship to Claude de Buxieres. I refused, and forbade the notary to open his mouth on the subject. ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet

... I believe it is from that tricky old woman!" And with her elbows on the table she gave herself up to the study of the telegram. "I never saw anything like it," she thought. "It looks exactly as if she wanted to frighten him without telling him what has happened. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... sent one of M. de Rambouillet's men to the stable where the deaf man's bay was standing, bidding him pay whatever was due to the dealer, and bring the horse to the south gate; my intention being to mount one of my men on it, and furnish the woman with a less tricky steed. ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... paper in there than the house worth! Have to step to Con-o-way all the time. Struggle and starve myself out for these fifteen acres. Thirty miles to Con-o-way. Thirty miles back by the course I travels. All them tricky mens try to go and get old Ben's land sign to 'em. That's the mainest thing take me to Con-o-way every week. They all talk so sugar mouth till my name down; then when my name write is another thing. When ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... with the Word of God against the fanatical Anabaptists of our day; and our efforts are not entirely in vain. The trouble is there are many who refuse to be instructed. They will not listen to reason; they will not listen to the Scriptures, because they are bewitched by the tricky devil who can make a lie ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... this: there was a great 'orse of a woman just in front o' me an' I couldn't move ahead of 'er no'ow, try as I would. It was a case o' bulk, if you know what I mean, an' elbows wasn't no good. An' 'ang me if she wasn't goin' in for that there very tricky jumper you wanted! I put up a good fight for it, 'm, I did indeed. We both reached it at the same time, got 'old of it together, an'—an'—when it gave way at the seams I let 'er 'ave it," said Elizabeth, concluding her simple narrative. It sounded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various

... said Calhoun. "I'd made guesses. I couldn't know that they were right. When you tried to kill me, you confirmed every one. Now, when we land on Orede I'm going to get you to try to put me in touch with your friends. It's going to be tricky, because they must be pretty well scared about that ship. But it's a highly desirable ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster

... shall take your own time about comin', and I'll hold the job open till you get here. Now I'm allowin' to lend you that broncho, so you can get back in case the old man grows worse. He's a tricky beast; but I reckon you'll handle him without any too much trouble. The only drawback is that I can't ...
— Dick in the Desert • James Otis

... the apartment. His face was a sickly white, covered almost to the eyes with a stubble the shade of a red Irish setter's coat. Phillips's comb had failed to control the pale brown hair, long matted and conformed to the contour of a constantly worn hat. His eyes were full of a hopeless, tricky defiance like that seen in a cur's that is cornered by his tormentors. His shabby coat was buttoned high, but a quarter inch of redeeming collar showed above it. His manner was singularly free from embarrassment when Chalmers rose from ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry

... hand;" but, in its stead, we could gaze at the festooned chains of Hammersmith Suspension Bridge in all its simple beauty, and see the Soapworks and the Mall on the hither and further shore. Our course led, not through serpentine canals and past Doges' palaces, gaudy with the lavish adornments of tricky Byzantine architecture; nor could we expect to see "lions" as historical as those which ornament the facade of Saint Mark's. However, as we glided up against the tide, in slow but steady progress, by willowy banks and osiered eyots, our boat yawning in and out and requiring a stiff weather helm ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... there was high wrath in Kostkov. The Lord John raved and swore. He blamed everybody, but most of all Stanislaus and the tricky Jesuits who, he said, were back of the whole scheme. He wrote to Cardinal Osius that he would not rest until he had broken up the Jesuit college in Pultowa and driven every schemer of them out ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.

... chair on each side the hearth, and between them a tiny red rocker with flowers painted on the arms of it. That was the clearest of all. There were persons in the large chairs, one a silent Scotchman who, instinct told him, must have been his father, and the other—oh, tricky memory that faltered when he wanted it to be so clear!—was the maddest, merriest little mother that ever came back to haunt a lad. By holding tight to the memory he could see that her eyes were ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... your yarn?" he repeated. "I thought when I set eyes on you that you were a tricky fellow. But this caps all!" Why, he suddenly raised his voice and stood up, "what do you mean by coming here with such a yarn? I've a mind to ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... running back, a distance of seventy miles, was not cheerful. When I got as far as Tuz I found a friend in charge of the dump there, and he let me draw what I wanted, so I turned back to try to get to the bridge by dark. One car after another got in trouble; first it was a puncture, then it was a tricky carburetor that refused to be put to rights; towing-ropes were called into requisition, but the best had been left behind, and those we had were rotted, and broke on every hill. Lastly a broken axle put one of the tenders definitely ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... know. It isn't always easy to know why you want things. You're such an inveterate liar, and so tricky that you'd ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... said the Distressed One; "I will be bail for him, and I know that Malambruno has nothing tricky or treacherous about him; you may mount without any fear, Senor Don Quixote; on my head be it if any ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... disbeliever, one who thinks that all private life will end in the all-consuming self-love of God."—Page 13. On page 13 he says further of them, that they are "never resting, never satisfied with life, often amusing themselves with jugglery and tricky witticisms, invariably victimizing others; secretly tormenting mediums, causing them to exaggerate in speech, and to falsify in acts; unlocking and unbolting the street doors of your bosom and memory; pointing your feet into wrong paths, and ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... complaints were heard from settlers over at McDowell, in the Verde Valley to the west, and other settlers away up the Verde toward Camp Sandy. Then Sowerby swore his stock was run off, and Bennett presently remained the only ranchman to stand up for them. The agent declared them contumacious and tricky. Other whites—Arizona white was then a reddish-brown—added their evil word to the official's. It was the old adage over again: "Give a dog a bad name," etc., and the department commander had ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King

... of himself he used the word "tramp" with a shocking lack of pride—led him inevitably into the far Northwest. Men were doing things up there. The country fairly seethed with the activity of live, virile men who were taking the first staunch grip upon the tricky wheel of fortune and were turning it to their own account. Every man was building; no man complained of conditions, for conditions were so new and so ready to hand that he who found fault was merely lessening his own chance ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... did not know; so I was anxious to make them while I could see. I looked at the moon—I could count on some light from her for an hour or so after sundown. But although I knew the last ten or twelve miles of my drive fairly well, I was also aware of the fact that there were in it tricky spots—forkings of mere trails in muskeg bush—where leaving the beaten log-track might mean as much as being lost. So I looked at my watch again and shook the lines over Peter's back. The first six miles ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... behaved in this matter much in the style of a tricky Van Buren politician, making a great bluster of words, and privately intending to do nothing. He was running for Congress at the time on the Van Buren ticket, and it is quite likely that the expenses of the campaign had exhausted his funds. That he should never have paid the bet was ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... "roped all the two-year-olds" in that first lesson, spent all evening handling them, and the Quarters looked on as he tested their tempers, for although most proved willing, yet a few were tricky or obstinate. All evening he sat, poring over the tiny Primer, amid a buzzing swarm of mosquitoes, with the doggedness all gone from his face, and in its place the light of a fair fight, and, to no one's surprise, in the morning ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... cultivated art, founded upon principles which can be readily applied by travelers and officials, so as to give them much independence of professional interpreters—as a class dangerously deceitful and tricky. This advantage is not merely theoretical, but has been demonstrated to be practical by a professor in a deaf mute college who, lately visiting several of the wild tribes of the plains, made himself understood among all of them without knowing a word ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... make Charlie's place quick, so I got busy on a short cut. Say, did you ever take a short cut—in a hurry? Don't ever do it. 'Tisn't worth it—if you're in a hurry. Of course, I lost myself in the storm, and Fate began handing me one or two. Fate's always tricky. She likes to wait till she gets you by the back of the neck, so you can't do a thing, and then passes you all that's coming to you. Guess she's had me by the neck quite awhile now, what with one thing and another. However, I mustn't blame her too much. You ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... you how you can make a lot of that money you like so much; upon condition, though—upon the one condition that you simply behave correctly. You are wise enough to understand me. If you disobey or prove tricky—well, I have but to hand you over to the law and you're settled. Do ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... not difficult to see why Marcius is considered to have been a simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the reputation of a false and tricky politician. The latter has been especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he brought the truce between the two nations to an end. Yet that stroke of policy, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... well as in finance the South was oppressed by its system. The merchant wanted cotton, for cotton was marketable, and could not be consumed by a tricky debtor. Single cropping was thus unduly encouraged; diversified agriculture and rotation of crops made little progress. The use of commercial fertilizers was greatly stimulated, but agriculture as a ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... matters ahead of us, have perfected a pigeon post. Even so, I cannot help thinking they would have been wiser to train the birds, while they were about it, to deliver the letters nearer the ground. Getting your letters out of those boxes must be tricky work even to the average ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... down when they, see that you've caught him foul," stated the skipper, consolingly. "I've got a lot of confidence in your grit, sir. But I must say it's a terrible tricky gang we're up against, so it seems ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... know about you," Passarelli said. "But I'm going to start looking out for myself. You're too tricky, Maragon." ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett

... water-hole. It is short, but tricky. Teeing off from just outside the bathroom door, you have to loft the ball over the side of the bath, holing out in the little vent pipe, at the end ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... you have obviously landed in another time-track. One that is parallel to—but just a slight bit different from the one you formerly knew. To you, we seem to be the same officers as in that world; but of course, we're not. It isn't the same universe. Hyperspace is tricky stuff, as our men are finding out. You've just got bounced around by one of the ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke

... sartin of that. Them varmints have ways of telegraphing ahead of ye to some of thar friends, so that ye'r'll run heels over head into some trap, onless yer understands thar devilments and tricky ways." ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne

... very peaceful with the world, watching the fire. Whatever Farnsworth would have to show to-night would be far more entertaining than watching T.V.—my custom on other evenings. Farnsworth, with his four labs in the house and his very tricky mind, never failed to provide my best night ...
— The Big Bounce • Walter S. Tevis

... all of this he was not carried away. However great the thrill, his mind could not be diverted by the discovery of a quartz vein. He knew, too, that mining of this character was a tricky thing and that nature, as often as not, left the shelves of her storehouses empty when by all the rules of geology they ought to be laden. He would explore and develop the find, but its chief value, he ultimately decided, was psychological, and would be seen in the continued support ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... delay caused by the sledge drivers who joined us late at night from Bakaritza with oats. Left at 8:40. Billeting party given an hour's start, travelling ahead of the point to get billets and dinner arranged. Marching hard. Cold sleet from southeast with drifting snow. The Shackelton boot tricky. Men find it hard to navigate. Road very hilly. Cross this inlet here. Down the long hill and up a winding hill to the crest again which overhangs the stream that soon empties into the big Dvina. To the left on the ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... cigarette, fell behind. But the wind was tricky, and with his third match he stepped into a stone archway, lighted his cigarette, buttoned his tunic high against the chill, and emerged to a silent but violent struggle just ahead. The two men had been attacked by three others, and as he stared, the ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... in steel, had tasted freedom. They knew their own strength now. Was it likely that Louis of Daneshold, with the blood of Norse ancestors in his veins, and those Crusader comrades of his, every whit as sturdy fighters, would hold in great respect a tricky king, a murderer of little boys, a man who could not lead to victory in his own battle? No! a thousand times no! And iron clanged on iron when word from the King was brought to the nobles as they camped at London. Down came the mailed hand of many a ...
— The Iron Star - And what It saw on Its Journey through the Ages • John Preston True

... a stationer's shop in West Street. But the trade at that particular shop was a very brisk one; scores of people had bought note-paper there, similar to that on which the supposed doctor had written his tricky letter. The handwriting was cramped, perhaps a disguised one; in any case, except under very exceptional circumstances, it could afford no clue to the identity of the thief. Needless to say, the tramp, when told to write his name, wrote a totally ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... jackal was dead, he had left two sons behind him, every whit as cunning and tricky as their father. The elder of the two was a fine handsome creature, who had a pleasant manner and made many friends. The animal he saw most of was a hyena; and one day, when they were taking a walk together, they picked up a beautiful green cloak, which had evidently been dropped by some one ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang

... suggested the girl's elfish personality, with unhappy eyes. Just what did Mignon mean by intimating that several persons were "going to be surprised" when to-morrow's practice game was over? It sounded like a threat. No doubt it was. Suppose—some one were to be hurt through this tricky playing of Mignon's team! Suppose that some one were to be Marjorie! Mary shuddered. She remembered once reading in a newspaper an account of a basket-ball game in which a girl had been tripped by an opponent and had fallen. That girl had hurt her spine and the physicians had decreed that she ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... minutes the Grand Duke Vodkakoff had been engaged, subject to his approval, at a weekly four hundred and fifty by the Stone-Rafferty circuit. And in a quarter of an hour Solly Quhayne, having pushed his way through a mixed crowd of Tricky Serios and Versatile Comedians and Patterers who had been waiting to see him for the last hour and a half, was bowling off in a taximeter-cab to the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse

... looking for, Bob," he said briefly, when he was in possession of the facts. "Couldn't be many families of that name around here, not unless they were related. Do you know, there's a lot of that tricky business afoot right here in Flame City? People have lost their heads over oil, and the sight of a handful of bills drives them crazy. The Watterby farm is one of the few places that hasn't been rushed by oil prospectors. That's one reason ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson

... he groaned, for just ahead of them he saw a rocky ridge higher than any they had passed over. Here then was the end, he thought. But the tricky moonlight had deceived him. They cleared those rocks by a hundred feet and just beyond Bruce ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell

... boios, that is to say houses, and treated with great respect; or again, they may be ornamented with gold and precious stones. It was noted that the breast ornaments, which they call guanines were made of copper rather than gold, and it was surmised that they dealt with tricky strangers who sold them these guanines, palming off upon them vile metal for gold. Neither did the Spaniards discover the trick till they melted these ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... two gentlemen I know not, my lord," said Lochiel, who had been standing by, "but I count the dark man the truer of the two. I like not the other, though I grant they both be brave. He is fair and false, if I am not out in my judgment, with a smooth word and a tricky dirk, like the Campbells. God grant ye be not ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren

... are going to beard the lion in his den. He is tricky, distrustful and savage. It may mean for us slavery, torture, or death. Meroe, let me finish alone this trip and this enterprise, beside which a desperate fight would be but a trifle. Return to my father and mother, whose ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue

... are so wise in the ways of those tricky things called nerves, must know that it was only a mild hysteria that made me say those most unladylike things. I have written Norah all about it. She has replied, advising me to stick to the good-fellow role but not ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... The question whether it is ever politic for a playwright to keep a secret from his audience is discussed elsewhere. What I have here in mind is not an ordinary secret, but a more or less tricky effect ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... more picking than stealing," said he. "Tricky picking too, Raffles, but innocent enough even for ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... lazy beggars going full speed," Philander was very emphatic. "Don't let 'em lag, or they'll wear you down. Don't ever let 'em get out of control, or put anything over on you, especially in sorting ore from rock. They're tricky. Use your shock-rod at every least sign of mutiny or loafing. Make 'em respect you. They know better'n to try to get away, 'cause they ...
— Man of Many Minds • E. Everett Evans

... nasty, underhand business from start to finish," said Miss Georgie, ignoring the remark. "It has upset everybody—me included, and I'm sure it isn't my affair. It's just one of those tricky cases that you know is rotten to the core, and yet you can't seem to get hold of anything definite. My dad had one or two experiences with old Baumberger—and if ever there was a sly old mole ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower

... A. That foxes are tricky animals; that crows are silly birds; that flattery and lying are bad; that it is foolish to trust anyone ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... Finally, when the little animal's triumph seemed complete, Grant stepped into the ring and sprang upon his back. A tremendous tussle for the mastery immediately ensued, but though he reared and shied and kicked, the tricky little beast was utterly unable to throw its fearless young rider, and amid the shouts of the audience the clown at last stopped the contest and ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill

... he really said was: "That remains to be seen. He proved himself a rather slippery customer last night, and the chase we put up may only serve to put him on his guard. Crazy people are tricky, you know." ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope

... tricky trick," explained Gummy volubly. "Of course not. But mother just let Mr. Strout trick himself. When he saw what he had done he tried to hand the money back; ...
— Janice Day, The Young Homemaker • Helen Beecher Long

... there was such an atmosphere of Paris about the stocky little fourteen-year-old chap, that we would often keep him longer with us, and treat him to a glass of anisette to hear his opinion of the writers whose work he handled. He was an amusing cross between a tricky little Paris gamin and a real child, and he hit off the characteristics of the various writers with as keen a touch of actuality as he could put into his stories of how many centimes he had won that morning at 'craps' from his friend ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne

... disappointed, any more than that other greater one; for on top of an open ridge, a short distance west of us, we saw a solitary horse, tethered, and feeding composedly, as if he had nothing to fear out here amongst the hills. Part of us keep our eyes upon him, lest his tricky owner should get the alarm and remove him; whilst others plunge into the coppice which fills the intervening hollow, and soon reappear ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... guess not, strannger, as how should they—a mean, tricky, catchpenny, skulking set—that makes money out of everybody, and hain't the spirit to spend it! I do hate them, now, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms

... "No; but it's tricky stuff. You get round it, working at it, nursing it—pretty soon you'll want to own some, then you're dished. It's the first step that counts. After that you may crave to get out and see places, but you can't; you ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... condenser, the device that stored the photons so close to each other, would also serve to urge them apart. I've made the necessary changes, and now I'm trying to set up the apparatus to work on solid light-matter. It was developed for gaseous material, and it's a rather tricky thing to change it over. But I think ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... slantwise across the roads, where sentries stood with fixed bayonets, and through which no one could pass unless the laisser passer was produced. Some of those barriers were quite tricky affairs to drive through in a big ambulance, and reminded me of a gymkhana! It was quite usual in those days to be stopped by a soldier waiting on the road, who, with a gallant bow and salute, asked your permission to "mount behind" and have a ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp

... insect allies is really unique and thorough, and it opens a door to even more valuable research," said I, as modestly as I could. "Flint is one of its great pioneers, and he's blazing the way. Some day when the real naturalist comes into his own, he will rank far, far above tricky ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... quote him falsely, to shield the sex. Quite right. But my sister must not be tricky. Keep to the rules. You're an exceptional woman, and it would be a good argument, if you were not in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... in his hands. He righted the rocket, balanced it. Began the tricky task of landing. It took all of his talent, all of his training. Ponderously, the ship settled into the iron sand; slowly, the internal ...
— The Hills of Home • Alfred Coppel

... the tall cover grass, and Travis tensed. Mba'a—coyote? Or were these companions of his actually ga-n, spirits who could choose their shape at will and had, oddly, this time assumed the bodies of man's tricky enemy? Were they ndendai—enemies—or dalaanbiyat'i, allies? In this mad world ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... tricky and complicated affair indeed. However, I think we shall pull it off. Er—might I send an ...
— The Holiday Round • A. A. Milne

... marked "Half speed," and it really meant half speed. Captain Zoradus Wass made scripture of the rules laid down by the Department of Commerce and Labor. There was no tricky slipping-over under his sway—no finger-at-nose connivance between the pilot-house and the chief engineer's grille platform. No, Captain Wass was not that kind of a man, though the fog had held in front of him two days, vapor thick as feathers in a ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day

... confidence. Her one idea of Him was that He could provide comfortably here and elsewhere for herself and Catharine. But to-day her conscience irritated her like a nettle. Could it be that she was at soul tricky? Could God hold her, rigorous church-member, fond wife and mother as she was, guilty of this boy's blood? Nettles, however, do not sting very deeply. She rose presently, unfolded her work, and sat sewing and singing a hymn, a complacent smile on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various

... winsome lass, I want no tricky wine, But amber nectar bring to me, Whose rich bouquet will cling to me, Whose spirit voice will sing to me From out the mug divine So, here's your toll—a kiss—away, You Hebe of the Rhine! No goblet's gold ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... himself can get the credit for their installation. In disposition he is stubborn and obstinate. He is also reserved and suspicious. Being of the selfish type, he will look after his own interests first in all things. No. 1 lacks straightforwardness and frankness of disposition, so he will be tricky, slippery, and do things in an underhanded way. He has very great dislike of detail and will have a tendency to procrastinate if given an opportunity, I believe he has passed the ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb

... other part of the fence negotiable. I think that by dint of patience and tactful management, many refusers may be taught to repose sufficient confidence in their riders to make an effort when required, but that can be done only by gentle means and easy tasks. Old tricky offenders cannot be cured of this or any other vice. A lady who is hunting on a doubtful jumper should be careful not to upset other horses by letting her refuser perform in front of them, but should ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes

... tricky work young Carberry had for a boon companion one "Sandy" Hollingshead, a sinewy chap, whose most prominent trait was his faculty for disappearing suddenly in a pinch. He was considerable of a boaster, ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... swordsman—resourceful and extremely tricky. In fact, he seemed never to have heard that there existed such a thing as a code of honor, for he repeatedly outraged a dozen Barsoomian fighting customs that an honorable man would ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... know slick rascals as well as I do, Frank, you'll understand that they often do just what everybody never dreams they'd be silly enough to try. That's the tricky part of the game, you see. Ordinarily that woods is the last place we'd think of looking for Jules. It ought to have an evil name for him, and make him shun it. You see, that's the way we'd just ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy

... in a sense, yet apparently courageous enough so far as physical combat was concerned. Also, he had disclosed an unexpected subtlety, a cat-like craft in eavesdropping and underhanded contrivances. The steward I believed a mercenary soul, tricky so far as his own comfort and gain were concerned, who, according to common report, had ingratiated himself with the second mate by sympathizing with him on every occasion because he had not been given the chief mate's berth. The two men from Boston I cared ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes

... work in a satisfactory way was an amazing task, and no evidence is on record that he left anything to chance. Results are an eloquent answer to any doubts on that subject. In addition to policing the seas, he had the anxiety of watching the tricky manoeuvres of the French fleet, and planning for their interception and defeat should they weaken in their elusive methods. Of course, they were playing their own game, and had a right to, and it was for their opponents, whom Nelson so well represented, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman

... inside of the door, and, as she too entered, locked the door behind her. It was pitch-black here in the attic. Her face was set now, her lips firm. She had been waiting for this, hadn't she? It was near the end at last. She had Danglar—alone. But not in the darkness! He was too tricky! She crossed the garret to where the candle-stub, stuck in the neck of the gin bottle, stood on the ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... a high nature, you become connected with people of the same mental caliber and you are able to help yourself. If your thoughts are tricky, you will bring tricky people to deal with you, who ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont

... prove unavailing. Ask concerning a man, "Is he active and capable?" Yes. "Industrious, temperate, and regular in his habits?" O Yes. "Is he honest? is he trustworthy?" Why, as to that, I am sorry to say that he is not to be trusted; he wants watching; he is a little tricky, and will take an undue advantage, if ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... Armies, without having any real Business for either of them. I will for some Time, at least, drop the delicate Subject of our Troops; but as to the other Point, I must say, I think it is a Curse upon us, that we can't even copy a good Example (for bad Ones we do more adroitly) but we do it in a tricky dirty Manner, and with as many Deviations as we can. Why, dost thou not know, Tom, what base filthy Jobs, Knaves, and Mean-foul'd Wretches have made, and do still make of these magnified Turnpikes. I was once fix'd to write a Book of all the Cheats, and all the Reptiles, of what Quality ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous

... knew quite well that such matters did not settle themselves, but he seems to have imagined that all he had to do was to sit tight and that matters would have to come his way. The tricky and shuffling behavior to which he descended would be unbelievable of a man of his standing were there not an authentic record made by himself. The suspense finally became so intolerable that the Cabinet acted without consulting the President any longer on the point. ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford

... in her cherished and determined ambition to ride Dale's mustang, and she was furious. The mustang did not appear to be vicious or mean. But he was spirited, tricky, mischievous, and he had thrown her six times. The scene of Bo's defeat was at the edge of the park, where thick moss and grass afforded soft places for her to fall. It also afforded poor foothold for the gray mustang, obviously placing him at a disadvantage. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey

... Kayerts trembled in every limb. He muttered, "I say! O! I say!" and putting his hand in his pocket found there a dirty bit of paper and the stump of a pencil. He turned his back on the others, as if about to do something tricky, and noted stealthily the weights which Carlier shouted out to him with unnecessary loudness. When all was over Makola whispered to himself: "The sun's very strong here for the tusks." Carlier said to Kayerts in a careless tone: "I say, chief, I might just as well give him a lift with ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... ones, but waited long for the broken-down motor to lift me again finally to pure air. In the days that followed I was advanced to the rank of car-boss in this same level, and found enough to do and more in keeping the tricky car-men moving. A favorite ruse was to tip over a car on its way to the chute and to grunt and groan over it for a half-hour pretending to lift it back on the rails; or to tuck away far back in some abandoned "lead" the ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... you mean!" exclaimed the taller lad, immediately. "Perhaps the secret hiding place of Mendoza and his crowd of cattle thieves may be somewhere around this same old rock pile. It'd be just like the tricky rustler to have a hide-out where ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson

... girl's interest. Is that it?" Again Larpent's eyes, shrewd and far-seeing, were fixed upon him. They held a glint of humour. "It's a tricky job, my lord. You'll wish you hadn't before ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... had noticed the solitary diner. The Era man drifted closer, moving unhurriedly, thinking furiously. It was no good trying some tricky approach; his best bet was the straight-from-the-shoulder bit. No point in hesitating. ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer

... home, or was not when I was a boy—but here you can take away a man's character, rob him of his home, corrupt his children. You can break your wife's heart, be cruel, revengeful; you can lie and be tricky, and no law can touch you—in fact, you are still a respectable citizen. But if you take a dollar-bill out of another man's cash drawer, you are sent to jail and branded as a thief. And it is right—looked at from one standpoint—the protection of society. It is the absence of all mercy ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith

... by the king's guides through the upper part of the country, by a route unnecessarily circuitous and roundabout, and one that required many days' journeying; but, as soon as the straight road was indicated to him by a freedman, a Syrian by nation, he quitted that tedious and tricky road, and, bidding his barbarian guides farewell, he crossed the Euphrates in a few days, and arrived at Antiocheia,[384] near Daphne. There he waited for Tigranes, pursuant to the king's orders (for Tigranes was absent, and still ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long

... murdered out of the season," answered the little priest, with simplicity. "Don't you think there's something rather tricky about this solitude, Flambeau? Do you feel sure a wise murderer would always want the spot to be lonely? It's very, very seldom a man is quite alone. And, short of that, the more alone he is, the more certain he is to be seen. No; I think there ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton

... 'must be lost! must be lost! must be lost!' And the Squire would tell about his horrid dream, seeing Hornblower's ghost smuggling a chest of tea (real congou), and the Collector catching him on the spot. 'Hornblower's tricky—he larnt it of the Yankees—and I'm always afraid he'll get cotched smuggling little things for himself. What a blessing it is to have a clear conscience!' he would say: the last ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... a snare to you and an embarrassment to me. She is a singularly attractive girl. No one can face her and accuse her. Britt says she is much more mature than when I saw her; and by that he meant to convey that she had grown clever, if not tricky. There is a bad streak in her, I'm afraid, for all her charm, and you would better let her entirely alone. Upon the most charitable construction she is hysterical, and her deception probably arises, as Britt says, ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... school!' interjected Lesbia. 'Tricky, flashy, chalky, shallow, smelling of the footlights ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... But wait a second. We got to be tricky about this." She was excited and tremendously in earnest. "If she gets to know I've been holding out the hat to you, we're wasting time. Give me the money, see? I'll make up a peach of a story about how it came to me,—the will of a rich uncle in Wisconsin or something, you know,—and ask her ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

... PUCK, a tricky, mischievous fairy, identified with Robin Goodfellow, and sometimes confounded with a house spirit, propitiated by kind words and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... very good, the 18-hole course being exceedingly sporting, and tricky enough to defeat the very elect. Jane and I had conveyed our clubs out to Kashmir, knowing that they were likely to prove useful. I had also taken the precaution to pack up a box or two of balls, but I found my labour all in vain, as "Haskells" and "Kemshall-Arlingtons" ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne

... and wonderful verse; they are more powerful than ever, their religion is accepted, they have lent money to the Holy Father himself! As for Germany, a foreigner is often asked whether he has a contract in writing, and this is in the smallest matters, so tricky are they in their dealings. In France the spectacle of national blunders has never lacked national applause for the past fifty years; we continue to wear hats which no mortal can explain, and every change of government is made on the express condition that things shall remain exactly as ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... on the Bannister bench, to shivering little Theophilus Opperdyke, the Phillyloo Bird, Shad Weatherby, and several more collegians who had joined him when the half ended, was singularly appropriate. In Latham's light, fast eleven, trained to the minute, coached to a shifty, tricky style of play with numberless deceptive fakes from which they worked the forward pass successfully, Bannister seemed to have encountered, as Mike Murphy phrased it, "A team that won't be beat!" According to the advance ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... sorry I have bought him now, sir," Jonas said. "Of course I should not have done so if I had heard these things before; but I was told he was one of the finest horses in the country, only a little tricky, and as his price was so reasonable I thought it a great bargain. But I see now I was wrong, and that it wouldn't be right for you to mount him; so I think we had best send him in on Saturday to the market and let it go for what it will ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... and embraced his prospective host, and five minutes later was speeding to his ship, the bearer of glad news. For, behold, where he thought to meet an enemy, devious and tricky, he had encountered instead, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... things is tricky. You get some of this stuff out of tolerance, it can wreck a whole ship. ...
— Alarm Clock • Everett B. Cole

... the talent displayed they have not an idea how a deliberating assembly ought to conduct its debates, and the disclosures and revelations of official secrecy and confidence have been monstrous. Thiers has all along been playing a false, shuffling, tricky part, and at last he got so entangled in the meshes of his own policy, and so confused by the consequences of his double dealing, that he evidently did not know what to do; and the King had no difficulty in getting him out of a Government that he could ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... long as both of us hope you may you'll have plenty of time. There's no rush, so go at it gradually. Be regular about it, but don't be too ambitious at the outset. Don't try to turn yourself into a tricky sprite in two weeks. For a fat man too abruptly to strip the flesh off his bones I regard as dangerous. It weakens him and depletes his powers of resistance and makes him fair game for any stray microbe which may be cruising about looking for a ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb

... pale, but not paler was he than the card-sharp just opposite. Redburn was no coward; neither was he accustomed to the desperate character of the population of the Hills. Should he shoot the tricky wretch before him, he knew he should be always calling himself a murderer. On the contrary, in the natural laws of Deadwood, such a murder would be ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler

... he. "You're a chip of the old block all right." Gertrude remembered with a twinge of apprehension what McAlister had said about her father's "pile." "But you must be prepared for war—underhanded, tricky, politicians' war," ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow

... what tools he'd need. It was a simple question, predicating a simple answer. Yet he didn't seem able to reply to it. He scratched his close-clipped pate and said he'd have to look things over and study it out. Windmills were tricky things, one kind demanding this sort of treatment ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer

... trouble, too. She and some of her sophomore friends seem to have a particular grudge against Mignon. They are forever criticising her playing. They have even gone so far as to say that we don't play fairly; that we are tricky. The idea!" Muriel looked highly offended at the mere idea of ...
— Marjorie Dean High School Freshman • Pauline Lester



Words linked to "Tricky" :   trickiness, artful, untrustworthy, difficult, hard, untrusty, trick



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