Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Mentally quick and original; bright.
- adj. Nimble with the hands or body; dexterous.
- adj. Exhibiting quick-wittedness: a clever story.
- adj. New England Easily managed; docile: "Oxen must be pretty clever to be bossed around the way they are” ( Dialect Notes).
- adj. New England Affable but not especially smart.
- adj. Chiefly Southern U.S. Good-natured; amiable. See Regional Note at ugly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Possessing skill or address; having special ability of any kind, especially such as involves quickness of intellect or mechanical dexterity; adroit. It now commonly implies the possession of ability which, though noteworthy, does not amount to genius, nor even to a high degree of talent.
- Indicative of or exhibiting cleverness: as, a clever speech; a clever trick.
- Well shaped; active-looking; handsome.
- Good-natured; obliging; complaisant; possessing an agreeable mind or disposition.
- Agreeable; pleasant; comfortable; nice: as, “these clever apartments,”
- Synonyms Adroit, Dexterous, Expert, etc. (see adroit); ready, quick, ingenious, neat-handed, knowing, sharp, bright.
- A variant of claver.
Wiktionary
- adj. Nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept.
- adj. Resourceful, sometimes to the point of cunning.
- adj. Smart, intelligent or witty; mentally quick or sharp.
- adj. Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.
- adj. anthropology Possessing magical abilities.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Possessing quickness of intellect, skill, dexterity, talent, or adroitness; expert.
- adj. Showing skill or adroitness in the doer or former.
- adj. Having fitness, propriety, or suitableness.
- adj. Well-shaped; handsome.
- adj. United States Good-natured; obliging.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing inventiveness and skill
- adj. mentally quick and resourceful
- adj. showing self-interest and shrewdness in dealing with others
Etymologies
- From East Anglian dialectal English cliver ("expert at seizing"), from Middle English cliver ("tenacious"), perhaps from Old English *clifer, clibbor ("clinging"), or perhaps from East Frisian (compare Saterland Frisian kluftich), or dialectal Norwegian klover ("ready, skillful"); possibly influenced by Old English clifer ("claw, hand"). Related to cleave. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English cliver; akin to East Frisian klifer, klüfer. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I _should_ like to know what her estimate is, but am always half afraid of finding a clever novel _too clever_, and of finding my own story and my own people all forestalled.”
“- I should like to know what her Estimate is-but am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever-& of finding my own story and my own people all forestalled.”
“Examining the brain-imaging data, Bengtsson found that the students' brains responded differently to the mistakes they made depending on whether they were primed with the word clever or the word stupid.”
““To you,” pursued Forcheville, “does intelligence mean what they call clever talk; you know, the sort of people who worm their way into society?””
“Modder River, when all day long most of our men were quite unable to discover on which side of the stream the Boer entrenchments were, and in what they called clever trickery, but we called treachery, they are absolutely unsurpassable.”
With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back
“To you," pursued Forcheville, "does intelligence mean what they call clever talk; you know, the sort of people who worm their way into society?”
“Mrs. Clymer Ketchum, though her acquaintances were chiefly in the world of fortune and of fashion, had yet a certain weakness for what she called clever people.”
“It is an operation so absorbing that it often weakens those pettier talents which make what we call the clever man.”
“The father-in-law of Tallien is a banker, what you call a clever fellow; another word, says the most sensible man here, for a cheat; the court and the clergy mutually support each other, and their combined despotism is indeed dreadful, yet much is doing; Jardine is very active; he has forwarded the establishment of schools in the Asturias with his Spanish friends.”
Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Robert Southey
“It depends what you call clever and what you call dirty," said Wenger, who was asked whether he felt Scholes tackled unfairly.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clever’.
-
grade 3
ability, absorb, act, tive, actual, adopt, advantage, ambition, ancient, arrange, arctic, attitude and 125 more...
-
Sweet tooth fairy dominoes
As originally suggested on sweet tooth fairy domino:
Each person adds one word trying to create a single, potentially infinite sweet tooth fairy (please look it up if you are not familiar wit...banana, boat, house, arrest, warrant, peace, sign, post, box, clever, Hans, device and 119 more...
-
Words related to knowledge
Words that relate to learning, knowing, being enlightened...
revelation, eureka, awakening, idea, sapient, astute, canny, intelligent, wise, sharp, shrewd, informed and 467 more...
-
Tati's list
comfortable
comfortable, avocado, avoid, beautiful, beer, bear, brief, breath, bug, bias, burn, case and 97 more...
-
Ayumi G3
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 128 more...
-
Word List Level RED 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
-
Ideas
brainchild, inspiration, muse, genius, eureka, discovery, intellectual prop..., intangible asset, goodwill, patented, savant, brainiac and 76 more...
-
Word List Level RED 1-40
absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advince, ambition, ancient, approach, arrange and 28 more...
-
Word List - Level Red 1-40
Ability, absorb, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient, approach and 28 more...
-
Grade 3
Ability, absorb, ability, accuse, act, active, actual, adopt, advantage, advice, ambition, ancient and 26 more...
-
Adjectives 2
Conditions
alive, better, important, careful, clever, dead, easy, famous, gifted, helpful, inexpensive, mushy and 8 more...
-
Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
-
Browning words of cotton - often stic...
words that meander or have a partial dimension:
words that "catch on": peano curves: fractalitescotton, clue, filament, filaria, filum, filovirus, clod, cloud, peano curve, alveoli, nuance, noil and 122 more...
-
The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
-
Coruscatingly what?
List of adjectival terms, from aggressive to zippered, paired in printed materials with the adverb coruscatingly, identified by a simple query to Google Search (Books).
...propaedeutic...aggressive, angry, articulate, astringent, aware, beautiful, big, blinding, bright, brilliant, brutal, cerebral and 93 more...
-
feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clever.
PossibleUnderscore Algernon: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Jack: Is that clever?
-The Importance of Being Ernest, Oscar Wilde Dec 31, 2009