I laughed at this WaPo headline: "Biden’s devious plan to break the MAGA fever just might work."

That seems like more of the usual fluff. But it turns out the "devious plan" is to spend "enormous amounts" of federal money. That's not crediting Biden with cleverness — as I was expecting. 

But "devious" doesn't mean devilish. It means by way of a winding path — circuitous, rambling, deviating. The "-vi-" is key. It's the Latin "via" (that is, "way").

Here's how Robert Louis Stevenson used it:

I READ, dear friend, in your dear face
Your life’s tale told with perfect grace;
The river of your life, I trace
Up the sun-chequered, devious bed
To the far-distant fountain-head.
Not one quick beat of your warm heart,
Nor thought that came to you apart,
Pleasure nor pity, love nor pain
Nor sorrow, has gone by in vain;
But as some lone, wood-wandering child
Brings home with him at evening mild
The thorns and flowers of all the wild,
From your whole life, O fair and true
Your flowers and thorns you bring with you!