sly as a fox vs subtle

sly as a fox

adj
  • Very sly, very cunning. 

subtle

adj
  • Cunning, skillful. 

  • Tenuous; rarefied; of low density or thin consistency. 

  • Barely noticeable, not obvious, indistinct. 

  • Cleverly contrived. 

  • Insidious. 

  • Hard to grasp; not obvious or easily understood. 

How often have the words sly as a fox and subtle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )