pawky

1 9.9

Showing clever, dry humor with a sly tone

adjective
/ˈpɔːki/

: astuto

With a pawky smile, she shared her clever plan to surprise her friend.

Examples

His pawky remarks made everyone laugh, even when the situation was serious.
Not much else to say, except for my slightly pawky observation that I don't think that the line below came out the way that the union spokesman intended for it to come out:

Blog text (10)
The comedian's pawky wit kept the audience engaged throughout the show.

Synonyms

quippy

vspawky

1 8.1

Saying quick clever remarks that are often funny and a little sarcastic

is sly and subtly humorous with a dry, cunning tone

waggish

vspawky

Literature

1 8.0

Playful and teasing in a light, joking way

is sly and understated in humour rather than openly playful

Antonyms

naive

264 4.1

Not experienced and too ready to trust others

gullible

56 4.2

Easily persuaded to believe things that are not true

How Wry

wry

18 7.5

arch

Literature

9 7.9

pawky

1 9.9

dry

106 4.6

Surface Forms

pawky positive

Morphology

pawky = pawk + y

Formed from a dialectal Scots base 'pawk' plus the adjective-forming suffix '-y'; the base is not a familiar modern English word, so learners cannot transparently derive the meaning.

Etymology

Pawky comes from Scots pauky, where it meant 'cunning' or 'sly'. A helpful way to remember it is to picture a quiet fox on soft paws — sly and a little funny — so pawky now means cleverly sly or dryly humorous.