Qualities
Synonyms for devious
Synonyms for devious: roundabout and oblique. Every one of them is a hand audited pair from the Synonym Stack word bank, shown below in the sense it fits, in a real sentence, and beside the words that only look close.
The 2 synonyms for devious
- roundaboutadjective, in the sense "deviating from a straight course"
- obliqueadjective, in the sense "indirect in departing from the accepted or proper way"
Each of these belongs to a different sense of devious, which is why the meaning beside them changes down the list.
deviating from a straight course
A scenic but devious route.
The true synonym
roundabout
Same sentence, swapped: A scenic but roundabout route.
Close but different
Wrong tiles, chosen to be tempting rather than absurd. The reason line above takes the nearest one apart; the rest fail the same sentence for their own reasons.
- shifty
- shifting
- dishonest
indirect in departing from the accepted or proper way
Used devious means to achieve success.
The true synonym
oblique
Same sentence, swapped: Used oblique means to achieve success.
Close but different
The game offers these three alongside the answer. They are close enough to tempt and wrong enough to be wrong, which is the whole design.
- tangled
- shifting
- removed
Where devious turns up in the game
devious is the word under test in two puzzles, spread across two difficulty tiers. It also sits on the board as one of the three wrong tiles in two other puzzles, where the answer is a different word entirely.
The puzzles where devious is the trap
- planetaryadjective, Tier 3, Ridgeline. The answer there is terrestrial, in the sense "of or relating to or characteristic of the planet Earth or its inhabitants", with devious sitting one tile away.
- shrewdadjective, Tier 3, Ridgeline. The answer there is sharp, in the sense "marked by practical hardheaded intelligence", and devious is one of the three tiles that lose.
Play devious
The bank on this page is the bank the game plays from, so devious reaches you as a board rather than a definition: the sentence first, four tiles, and the meaning after you choose.
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The ring widens as it goes, from qualities at Ridgeline outward to the whole bank.
A reason under every answer, not just a right answer
Synonym Stack plays from this exact bank. devious carries 1 written reason line, and the game shows them the moment a round ends, whichever tile you tapped.