clever
Syllables: clev·erUK/ˈklɛv.ə//ˈklɛv.ɚ/
clever adjective: nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.
Adjective
clever (comparative cleverer or more clever, superlative cleverest or most clever)
- 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,
- Quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent.
- The cleverest and most prolific inventors, such as Reiner Knizia (who lives in England) are nerdy superstars. Euro (also “German-style”) games must not be confused with “Ameritrash” games, which generally involve high drama and employ plastic pieces, though arguing over what the difference is seems...2008 August 28, “German recreation: An affinity for rules?”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 02 Feb 2021
- 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.
- Synonyms:
- cunning, street-smart
- Smart, intelligent, or witty; mentally quick or sharp.
- And so make life, death, and that vast forever / One grand, sweet song.19th c, Charles Kingsley, A Farewell, Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them all day long
- Lord Macaulay has said of Bunyan: “though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. One of these minds produced ‘The Paradise Lost;’ the other, ‘The Pilgrim's Progress.’”1860, John Timbs, School-Days of Eminent Men, page 177
- Synonyms:
- quick-witted, sharp-witted
- 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, […]1892, Margaret Oliphant, The Heir Presumptive and the Heir Apparent, page 263
- Showing mental quickness and resourcefulness.
- This is a simple but clever trick to solve the problem.
- Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.[…]Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster. Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans. “Operational improvement” in a portfolio company has often meant little more than promising...2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70
- Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.
- Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in. "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." And it always ended...1816, Jane Austen, chapter 9, in Emma, volume 1
- I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I never could think of any till after the party was over.1919, William Somerset Maugham, chapter III, in The Moon and Sixpence
- Synonyms:
- ingenious
- 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.2010, Colin Ross, Death of the Docks, page 196
- 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.2019, Neil Forsyth, 30:07 from the start, in Guilt, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Jake McCall (Jamie Sives)
- Good-natured; obliging.
- 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.1904, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, volume XXXVIII, page 255
- Prior to this, the two women, who were “clever,” and possessed a certain amount of magical “power,”[…].1947, Oceania,, volumes 16-17, page 330
- 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.
- 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,
- 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.1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “The Character of John Bull’s Sister Peg, with the Quarrels that Happen’d between Master and Miss, in Their Childhood”, in John Bull Still in His...
Proper noun capitalized: Clever
Clever
clever meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
clever in Hindi
- mentally quick or sharp
- होशियार hośiyār
clever in Tamil
- புத்திசாலி, கெட்டிக்காரர், சாதுரியமான
clever in Marathi
- clever, smart, intelligent
- हुशार huśār
- clever, competent, expert, dexterous
- दक्ष dakṣa
- clever, skillful
- कसबी kasbī
clever in Urdu
- mentally quick or sharp
- ہوشیار hośiyār
More languagesFewer languages
- clever in Bengali
- চতুর cotur
- clever in Telugu
- మేధావి mēdhāvi, మంత్రజాలం mantrajālaṁ
- clever in Malayalam
- വെളവൻ veḷavaṉ
- clever in Kannada
- ವಿಧಿ vidhi
- clever in Punjabi
- شوخا śoxā, ਚਲਾਕ calāk
- clever in Gujarati
- હોશિયાર hośiyār
- clever in Odia
- ଦକ୍ଷିଣ dakṣiṇa
- clever in Sanskrit
- चतुर catura
- clever in Sinhala
- හපන් hapan, දක්ෂ dakṣa
- clever in Assamese
- বুধিয়ক budhik
- clever in Nepali
- चालाक
- clever in Pashto
- ځيرک źírak
- clever in Arabic
- ذَكِيّ ḏakiyy
- clever in Malay
- pandai
- clever in Persian
- باهوش bâ-huš, زیرک zirak, زرنگ zerang
- clever in Thai
- ฉลาด chà-làat
- clever in Vietnamese
- thông minh
- clever in Myanmar
- တော် tau, လျင် lyang, ဉာဏ်ကောင်း nyankaung:, ပါးလျား pa:lya:
Examples of clever in a sentence
- The cleverest and most prolific inventors, such as Reiner Knizia (who lives in England) are nerdy superstars.2008 August 28, “German recreation: An affinity for rules?”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 02 Feb 2021:
- Clever financial ploys are what have made billionaires of the industry’s veterans.2013 June 22, “Engineers of a different kind”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8841, page 70:
- "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." And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid."1816, Jane Austen, chapter 9, in Emma, volume 1:
- 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.2011 April 10, Alistair Magowan, “Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle”, in BBC Sport:
Synonyms of clever
Antonyms
- dull
- stupid
- ineffectual
- naive
- clumsy
- antonym(s) of
Forms of clever
| comparative | cleverer |
|---|---|
| comparative | more clever |
| superlative | cleverest |
| superlative | most clever |
Origin of clever
From East Anglian dialectal English cliver (“expert at seizing”), from Middle English cliver (“tenacious”). * perhaps from Old English *clifer, clibbor (“clinging”); * or perhaps from Dutch, Low German, or East/Saterland Frisian (compare kluftich (“clever, prudent”), probably derived from Proto-West Germanic *kleuban (“to cleave, split”)); * or dialectal Norwegian klover (“ready, skillful”), itself borrowed from Middle Low German klever, related to kleven (“to stick”), from Old Saxon klibōn, from Proto-West Germanic *klibēn, related to the Old English word above; * possibly influenced by Old English clifer (“claw, hand”) (compare clawian (“to claw”)). Related to cleave. Perhaps influenced by Welsh celfydd (“talented, dexterous, expert”). Compare typologically Czech chytrý, Russian хи́трый (xítryj) (akin to хвата́ть (xvatátʹ)), also note схва́тывать на лету́ (sxvátyvatʹ na letú).
* Rhymes: -ɛvə(ɹ)
Words formed from clever
Phrases with clever
Words that rhyme with clever
17 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about clever
- What does clever mean?
- Clever means nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.
- What is clever in Hindi?
- Clever in Hindi is होशियार (hośiyār). See Clever meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use clever in a sentence?
- The cleverest and most prolific inventors, such as Reiner Knizia (who lives in England) are nerdy superstars.
- What part of speech is clever?
- Clever can be an adjective or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce clever?
- Clever is pronounced /ˈklɛv.ə/ (UK).
Words near clever in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: clever (page history and authors); Clever (page history and authors); clever (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कसबी (Marathi) (page history and authors); വെളവൻ (Malayalam) (page history and authors); ವಿಧಿ (Kannada) (page history and authors); شوخا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); હોશિયાર (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ଦକ୍ଷିଣ (Odia) (page history and authors); clever (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ځيرک (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-clever.ogg.
Cite this entry: “clever.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/clever. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.