cleverality
UK/klɛvəˈɹælɪtɪ/
cleverality noun: cleverness.
Noun
cleverality (uncountable)
- cleverness
- I protest, it is to me the most difficult of things to write to one of your female - geniuses — there is a certain degree of cleverality (if I may so call it), an easy kind of derangement of periods, a gentleman-like — fashionable - careless — see-saw of dialogue — which I know no more of than you...1803, Ignatius Sancho with Joseph Jekyll, Letters of the late Ignatius Sancho, an African, page 140
- But the time wearing late, and Tammie Bodkin having brought ben the shop-key, after putting on the window-shutters, Nanse and I, out of goodfellowship, thought we could not do less than ask the honest man, whose cleverality had diverted us so much, to sit still and take a chack of supper;1868, David Macbeth Moir, The life of Mansie Wauch: tailor in Dalkeith
Examples of cleverality in a sentence
- But we all, know what became of the man who was too clever: he perished of spontaneous combustion, consumed by his own excessive cleverality.1882 March 18, The Lecturer, “BALQUHIDDER IN THE HIGH LANDS.”, in Otago Witness, number 1582, Dunedin, NZ, page 26:
- "That," said Professor Denis Donoghue, "is what in Ireland is called 'cleverality.'" We had been talking of a contemporary American poet whom I admired for ironic and dazzling wit.1975 April 10, Doris Eyges, “Beware of being too clever”, in The Christian Science Monitor, page 31:
- The cleverality did not end there as McCreevy decided to borrow some of the old clothes from Tony Blair's spin machine2003 December 7, “The chips are down for Bertie's kebabs - Analysis, Opinion ...”, in Irish Independent:
Origin of cleverality
Formed irregularly as clever + -ality on the pattern of comicality and other such terms.
Questions about cleverality
- What does cleverality mean?
- Cleverality means cleverness.
- How do you use cleverality in a sentence?
- But we all, know what became of the man who was too clever: he perished of spontaneous combustion, consumed by his own excessive cleverality.
- What part of speech is cleverality?
- Cleverality is a noun.
- How do you pronounce cleverality?
- Cleverality is pronounced /klɛvəˈɹælɪtɪ/ (UK).
Words near cleverality in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: cleverality (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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Cite this entry: “cleverality.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cleverality. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.