wily beguily
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Rhyming alteration of wily + beguile.
Noun
[edit]wily beguily (plural wily beguilies)
- (obsolete) Someone who is caught by their own trickery; a person that becomes trapped by their own craftiness.
- (obsolete) A cunning trick, something wily, trickery.
- 1603, Michel de Montaigne, translated by John Florio, Essays, III.8:
- I often hazard upon certaine outslips of my minde for which I distrust my selfe; and certaine verball wilie-beguilies [translating finesses], whereat I shake mine eares; but I let them runne at hab or nab […].