shrewdness

Noun

shrewdness (countable and uncountable, plural shrewdnesses)

1. The quality of being shrewd.
   • A man with less worldly shrewdness would never have seen how things really stood; a man with less pliability could never have adapted himself to them. It must always be remembered, that his whole administration was one long struggle: he had to maintain his master on the throne, and himself in the...1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Interview”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 245
   • At the centre of Stalin’s superiority over his competitors was certainly his intense will, just as Napoleon ranked what he called ‘moral fortitude’ higher in a general than genius or experience. When Milovan Djilas said to Stalin during the Yugoslav-Soviet discussions in Moscow during the war that...1968, Robert Conquest, “The Purge Begins”, in The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties, Macmillan Company, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 75
2. (collective) A group of apes.
   • Larry was dragged off by a shrewdness of apes (a group of apes is called a shrewdness)2018, Bob Leszczak, Single Season Sitcoms of the 1990s, McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers, page 186
   • A shrewdness of gibbons will sing together very loudly.2012, Streak of Tigers: Animal Groups in the Jungle, Abdo Publishing