English

Alternative forms

• oyly (obsolete)

Adjective

oily ‎(comparative oilier, superlative oiliest)

1. Relating to or resembling oil.
   • 1895, H. G. Wells, The Time Machine, Chapter 11,

     There were no breakers and no waves, for not a breath of wind was stirring. Only a slight oily swell rose and fell like a gentle breathing, and showed that the eternal sea was still moving and living.

2. Covered with or containing oil.
   • 1853, Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,”

     His clothes were apt to look oily and smell of eating-houses.

   • 1917, Robert Hichens, In the Wilderness, Chapter ,

     […] overdressed young men of enigmatic appearance, with oily thick hair, shifty eyes, and hands covered with cheap rings, swaggered about smoking cigarettes and talking in loud, ostentatious voices.

3. (figuratively) Excessively friendly or polite but insincere.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act I, Scene 1,

     […] for I want that glib and oily art

     To speak and purpose not, since what I well intend,

     I’ll do’t before I speak […]

   • 1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, Chapter 22,

     Mr Carker the Manager, sly of manner, sharp of tooth, soft of foot, watchful of eye, oily of tongue, cruel of heart, nice of habit, sat with a dainty steadfastness and patience at his work, as if he were waiting at a mouse’s hole.

   • 1914, Algernon Blackwood, “The Damned,”

     ‘He had an inflexible will beneath all that oily kindness which passed for spiritual […] ’

Derived terms

• oiliness
• smell of an oily rag

Translations

Noun

oily ‎(plural oilies)

1. A marble with an oily lustre.
   • 1998, Joanna Cole, Stephanie Calmenson, Michael Street, Marbles: 101 ways to play

     Lustered (also called lusters, rainbows, oilies, and pearls).

   • 2001, Paul Webley, The economic psychology of everyday life (page 39)

     But marbles are not only used to play games: they are also traded. In this market, the value of the different kinds of marbles (oilies, emperors, etc.) is determined by local supply and demand and not by the price of the marbles […]

2. (in the plural, informal) Oilskins. (waterproof garment)