"by the sly" meaning in English

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      "expansion": "by the sly (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
  "senses": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1859, George Eliot, The Lifted Veil:",
          "text": "I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that \"an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "on the sly"
      ],
      "id": "en-by_the_sly-en-adv-nP2FkD3c",
      "links": [
        [
          "on the sly",
          "on the sly"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(dated) on the sly"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "dated",
        "not-comparable"
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    }
  ],
  "word": "by the sly"
}

{
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "by the sly (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adv"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adv",
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        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1859, George Eliot, The Lifted Veil:",
          "text": "I read Plutarch, and Shakespeare, and Don Quixote by the sly, and supplied myself in that way with wandering thoughts, while my tutor was assuring me that \"an improved man, as distinguished from an ignorant one, was a man who knew the reason why water ran downhill.\"",
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        "on the sly"
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          "on the sly",
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        "(dated) on the sly"
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  "word": "by the sly"
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