Word Finder - shifty

definition

Subject to frequent changes in direction.

definition

(of a person's eyes) Moving from one object to another, not looking directly and steadily at the person with whom one is speaking.

definition

Having the appearance of being dishonest, criminal or unreliable.

example

He was a shifty character in a seedy bar, and I checked my wallet was still there after talking to him.

definition

Resourceful; full of, or ready with, shifts or expedients.

Napoleon thought him a " shifty Byzantine," and called him the Talma of the North, as ready to play any conspicuous part.

Someone's been hanging around the village, looking shifty.

He has held that job for two different Prime Ministers, which shows he has pretty shifty footwork.

And then I asked what he did, and he looked slightly shifty.

The wind picked up slightly for the start of race two, only to progressively drop and become more shifty as the race developed.

So you know why the butler looked so shifty the night of the party.

Prayers were answered & a light shifty SE breeze slowly built all day.

More light, shifty winds are forecast for next week.

A Taxi stuck in traffic had two shifty characters in the back.

The NE wind was blowing along the length of the lake allowing a good long beat into the shifty conditions for all races.

The 15 knots of breeze predicted never filled in - instead the fleet raced in a shifty force 2-3.

Someone 's been hanging around the village, looking shifty.

You're missing the shifty eyes of the bluffer, the physical droop of someone's shoulders when they get a hand that isn't going to work out, and all those other little tell-tale characteristics you used to look for.

Charles Emmanuel achieved a great reputation as a statesman and warrior, and increased the prestige of Savoy, but he was too shifty and ingenious, and his schemes ended in disaster.

He was repeatedly employed on embassies to the Low Countries, and was for a long time stationed at Calais as agent in the shifty negotiations carried on by Wolsey with the court of France.

Bruce, previously so shifty, had never wavered or turned back since he smote the Red Comyn at Dumfries.

The more loyal William Douglas, in 1353, slew his kinsman, the shifty Knight of Liddesdale, on the braes of Yarrow, and a fragment of one of the oldest Scottish ballads deplores his fall.

The English intrigue was undoubtedly a serious matter, because the shifty Charles II.

The only security which he had for the safety of his dominions in his absence was that his most dangerous neighbor, the king of France, was also setting out on the Crusade, and that his brother John, whose shifty and treacherous character gave sure promise of trouble, enjoyed a well-merited unpopularity both in England and in the continental dominions of the crown.

He plunged into a war with this clever and shifty prince, which lastedwith certain short breaks of truces aqd treatiestill his death.

It was an odious face crafty, vicious, malignant, with shifty, light-grey eyes and white eyelashes.

Life's complex, with fundamentalists at school and shifty self-help gurus clogging the airways.

The weather is raw and boisterous in winter, shifty and ungenial in summer, and a downright meteorological purgatory in the spring.

Then there are the cases of supernaturalism which do not involve shifty sadhus, but more complex and fascinating psychological motives than mere greed.

The first race started in a very shifty 15 knots coming from the Northwest.

The wind did fill in but was testing as it was quite shifty.

Quizzed by the Emir, the camel driver related his story confidently enough but he always seemed uneasy and rather shifty.

Shifty Shellshock - Otherwise known as Seth Binzer, former lead singer of the band Crazy Town and best known for the song Starry Eyed Surprise featuring D.J.

Seth "Shifty" Bizner frequently relapsed on both seasons one and two of Celebrity Rehab and he relapsed during Sober House as well.

He did not have shifty eyes or wear a dirty rain mac.

France was now too strong for England, and both Maximilian and Ferdinand of Spain were selfish and shifty allies.