"wiry" = wily

[Jonathan Lighter]

Dan Rather, guesting on _Fox & Friends_, has just described Saddam Hussein as "wiry, cunning, and smart."

  Solecism, yes; _lapsus linguae_, no:

  a1895  in Robert McLean Calder _A Berwickshire Bard: The Songs and Poems of Robert McLean Calder_ (Paisley: J. & R. Parlane, 1897) 215: Foes wiry and cunning we shun and abhor.

  2000 _"Bad" Birds, are Real_  [http://bioacoustics.cse.unsw.edu.au/birding-aus/2000-04/msg00187.html]: House Crow (a wiry foe).

  2005 _A Zone v3_ [http://www.angelu5.com/archives/0507.htm]: The lecturers are quite wiry and cunning.

  2006_HCRealms Forum_ [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22wirey%20foe%22&btnG=Search+Books&sa=N&tab=gw]: Against a wirey foe like Warlock, he's combat - savvy enough to put his gun away and just try to blast Warlock to hell and back .

  I have noticed this usage before, probably in the ' 70s.

  JL


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