clever

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Nimble with hands or body

   Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.

   • My dad is quite clever with his hands, especially at carpentry.
   • a. 1898, Francis James Child (collator), Child's Ballads, 198: "Bonny John Seton", The Highland men, they're clever men At handling sword and shield,
2. 2

   Quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas

   Quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent.

3. 3

   Mentally quick and resourceful

   Mentally quick and resourceful; skilled at achieving what one wants in a mentally agile and inventive way.

   • clever like a fox
   • With a clever lawyer, she could easily be acquitted.
4. ›+ 10 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Smart, intelligent, or witty

      Smart, intelligent, or witty; mentally quick or sharp.

      • And so make life, death, and that vast forever / One grand, sweet song.
   2. 5

      Sane

      Sane; in one's right mind.

      • He was not clever, poor fellow, he did not know what questions to ask; he asked the same questions again and again. He continued to show his own troubled thoughts, and the vague dread in his mind, […]
   3. 6

      Showing mental quickness and resourcefulness.

      • This is a simple but clever trick to solve the problem.
   4. 7

      Showing inventiveness or originality

      Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.

      • I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I never could think of any till after the party was over.
      • Just before the break Villa were denied a second goal when Bent had the ball in the net, although he was ruled offside after Jean Makoun's clever pass.
   5. 8

      Fit and healthy

      Fit and healthy; free from fatigue or illness.

      • But at that moment I knew it was all over for me, I had never thought that this day would come, but it had and I was not feeling too clever. In fact I had to escape to a nearby toilet to be sick.
      • Right, and no, because the solicitor has told her that Walter's legs didn't look too clever, which, apparently, everyone's putting down to a fall, thankfully.
   6. 9

      Good-natured

      Good-natured; obliging.

   7. 10

      Possessing magical abilities.

      • When a clever man is out hunting and comes across the tracks of, say, a kangaroo, he follows them along and talks to the footprints all the time for the purpose of injecting magic into the animal which made them.
      • Prior to this, the two women, who were “clever,” and possessed a certain amount of magical “power,”[…].
      • Fred is the clever fellow or tribal doctor who practises with the Kuku-Yalanji people. The tribal doctor’s work includes curing sickness, finding out the causes of death, predicting the future and making and stopping rain.
   8. 11

      Fit

      Fit; suitable; having propriety.

      • 18th c, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope (later lines), Imitation of Horace, 1852, Charles Knight (collator), Half-hours with the Best Authors, Volume 4, page 188, I can't but think 'twould sound more clever, To me and to my heirs forever.
   9. 12

      Well-shaped

      Well-shaped; handsome.

      • Tho' the Girl vvas a tight, clever VVench as any vvas, and thro' her pale Looks, you might diſcern Spirit and Vivacity, vvhich made her not indeed a perfect Beauty, but ſomething that vvas agreeable.
   10. 13

       A city in Missouri.

The neighborhood

• antonymdullantonym(s) of “smart, intelligent or witty”
• antonymstupidantonym(s) of “smart, intelligent or witty”
• antonymineffectualantonym(s) of “resourceful, perhaps cunning”
• antonymnaiveantonym(s) of “resourceful, perhaps cunning”
• antonymclumsyantonym(s) of “nimble or skillful”
• antonymantonym(s) of