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CLEVER
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I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Showing inventiveness and skill
Example:
an ingenious solution to the problem
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
adroit (quick or skillful or adept in action or thought)
Derivation:
cleverness (the property of being ingenious)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Showing self-interest and shrewdness in dealing with others
Example:
too clever to be sound
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
smart (showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Mentally quick and resourceful
Example:
you are a clever man...you reason well and your wit is bold
Synonyms:
apt; clever
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
intelligent (having the capacity for thought and reason especially to a high degree)
Derivation:
cleverness (intelligence as manifested in being quick and witty)
Context examples:
For a moment I thought you had done something clever.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“Perhaps! But if I had been more fit to be married I might have made you more so, too. Besides, you are very clever, and I never was.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He will be clever if he can drive where I cannot follow him.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Prevented from obtaining his share of meat and fish when a general feed was given to the camp-dogs, he became a clever thief.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
Bingley was by no means deficient, but Darcy was clever.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
March 9 will also be the date your ruler Mercury goes direct, and Mercury, a clever little planet, is a wild child at the start and end of his retrograde.
(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)
“So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young—he wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time.”
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Your wicked project upon her peace turns out a clever thought indeed.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
She is very clever and gentle, and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien and her expression continually remind me of my dear aunt.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
For my own part, if I were only assured that I was as clever and brave as the average man about me, I should be well satisfied.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
