Insidious

They were insidious–bleeding off just enough to keep the host from objecting until they had you in their fist where they could force you to pay and pay and pay.

226 We Immoralists.—This world with which we are concerned, in which we have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of delicate command and delicate obedience, a world of “almost” in every respect, captious, insidious, sharp, and tender—yes, it is well protected from clumsy spectators and familiar curiosity!

Him and the scanners, insidious and invisible, that watched him and recorded.

She was incredibly warm, incredibly there, Ralph reflected for a moment on the similarities between loneliness and insomnia-how they were both insidious, cumulative, and divisive, the friends of despair and the enemies of love-and then he pushed those thoughts aside and kissed her.

I suspect Haymitch initially, but then there’s a more insidious fear that the Capitol may by monitoring and confining me.

Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny, And longed to listen to those subtle charms Insidious lovers weave when they would win Some fencèd fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin To yield her treasure unto one so fair, And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth, Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair, And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade, Returned to fresh assault, and all day long Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy, And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song, Then frowned to see how froward was the boy Who would not with her maidenhood entwine, Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine, Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done, But said, “He will awake, I know him well, He will awake at evening when the sun Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel, This sleep is but a cruel treachery To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line Already a huge Triton blows his horn, And weaves a garland from the crystalline And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn The emerald pillars of our bridal bed, For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral-crownèd head, We two will sit upon a throne of pearl, And a blue wave will be our canopy, And at our feet the water-snakes will curl In all their amethystine panoply Of diamonded mail, and we will mark The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark, Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold, And we will see the painted dolphins sleep Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous flocks.

Insidious.

Semitic tenacity showed itself in the many rebellions of Syria, Mesopotamia and Arabia against the grosser forms of Turkish penetration; and resistance was also made to the more insidious attempts at absorption.

As from some rock that overhangs the flood The silent fisher casts the insidious food, With fraudful care he waits the finny prize, And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies: So the foul monster lifts her prey on high, So pant the wretches struggling in the sky; In the wide dungeon she devours her food, And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.

The most insidious thing about bondage was how easy it was to grow accustomed to it.

He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career—when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior.

The abrupt stillness seemed alien and artificial, a little insidious.

There was a pause for a few moments, and then the low insidious sound was repeated.

To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect, does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.