"wiry" = wily
Jonathan Lighter
wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM
Sun Nov 5 14:49:19 UTC 2006
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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