clever
Americanadjective
-
mentally bright; having sharp or quick intelligence; able.
- Antonyms:
- stupid
-
superficially skillful, witty, or original in character or construction; facile.
It was an amusing, clever play, but of no lasting value.
-
showing inventiveness or originality; ingenious.
His clever device was the first to solve the problem.
-
adroit with the hands or body; dexterous or nimble.
- Antonyms:
- clumsy
-
Older Use.
-
suitable; convenient; satisfactory.
-
in good health.
-
adjective
-
displaying sharp intelligence or mental alertness
-
adroit or dexterous, esp with the hands
-
smart in a superficial way
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informal sly; cunning
-
dialect (predicative; used with a negative) healthy; fit
Other Word Forms
- cleverish adjective
- cleverishly adverb
- cleverly adverb
- cleverness noun
- overclever adjective
- overcleverly adverb
- overcleverness noun
- unclever adjective
- uncleverly adverb
- uncleverness noun
Etymology
Origin of clever
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English cliver, perhaps from Old English clifer “claw,” clife “burdock,” or akin to East Frisian klüfer “skillful, agile, alert”; cleavers, cleft 1, clove 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Trotsky was a dazzling speaker and a dandy who “never quite stopped being a clever schoolboy desperate to show others how much he had learned.”
Mr. Nesbø encloses “Wolf Hour,” translated from the Norwegian by Robert Ferguson, in a clever conceptual envelope: The book is being written years later by a Norwegian cousin of Bob’s.
All of which would be merely clever if the eight-episode “Classic” were not—in addition to being the funniest series of recent memory—so devoted to the concepts of tradition and continuity in the theater.
Though no response, spirit or mortal, was recorded, it’s assumed that the clever Miss Allen remained a skeptic.
From Literature
The work suggests that Stone Age people were as clever as modern-day humans, according to researcher Ewa Dutkiewicz from Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
