Dictionaries › English

devious

Pronunciation: /ˈdiː.vi.əs/

The English word “devious” has 2 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Cunning or deceiving, not straightforward or honest, not frank.
  2. Roundabout, circuitous, deviating from the direct or ordinary route.

Etymology

1590s, "out of the common or direct way," from Latin devius (“out of the way, remote, off the main road”), from de via, from de (“off”) (see de-) + via (“way, road”). Compare deviate. Originally in the Latin literal sense; the figurative sense of "deceitful" is first recorded 1630s. Related to deviously, deviousness. Figurative senses of the Latin word were "retired, sequestered, wandering in the…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “devious” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.