insidious
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ɪnˈsɪdi.əs/
Adjective

insidious

  1. Producing harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner.
    • 2007, Sharon Weinstein, Ada Lawrence Plumer, Principles and practice of intravenous therapy
      The nurse always must be alert to signs of slow leak or insidious infiltration.
  2. Intending to entrap; alluring but harmful.
    • 1841 February–November, Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge”, in Master Humphrey’s Clock, volume III, London: Chapman & Hall, […], OCLC 633494058 ↗, chapter 48, page 215 ↗:
      Gashford slid his cold insidious palm into his master's grasp, and so, hand in hand, and followed still by Barnaby and by his mother too, they mingled with the concourse.
    • The insidious whisper of the bad angel.
    • 1948, D.V. Chitaley (editor or publisher), All India Reporter, volume 3, page 341:
      All these facts clearly appear to me now to establish that the sanctioned scheme was a part of a bigger and […] more insidious scheme which was to hoodwink the creditors and to firmly establish and consolidate the position […]
    • 1969, Dorothy Brewster, John Angus Burrell, Dead reckonings in fiction
      The atmosphere of this insidious city comes out to meet him the moment he touches the European shore; for in London he meets Maria Gostrey just over from France.
    • 2005, Anita Desai, Voices in the City, page 189:
      This seemed to her the worst defilement into which this insidious city had cheated her and in her agitation, she nearly ran into the latrine, […]
    • 2007, Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool, page 171:
      This is the insidious way sports entrap you: you follow a player, which commits you to his team. You begin to acquire scraps of utterly useless information about teammates, managers, owners, trainers, agents, lawyers.
    Hansel and Gretel were lured by the witch’s insidious gingerbread house.
  3. (nonstandard) Treacherous.
    The battle was lost due to the actions of insidious defectors.
Translations Translations


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