crooked vs underhanded

crooked

adj
  • Dishonest or illegal; corrupt. 

  • Not straight; having one or more bends or angles. 

  • Set at an angle; not vertical or square. 

underhanded

adj
  • Sly, dishonest, corrupt, cheating. 

  • Done by moving the hand (and arm) from below. 

  • Insincere; sarcastic. 

  • An underhanded compliment is actually criticism. 

  • Secret; surreptitious. 

  • His underhanded trick backfired and he was disqualified. 

  • Understaffed. 

adv
  • In an underhanded manner. 

noun
  • Devious people, collectively. 

How often have the words crooked and underhanded occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )