clever

clever 1 *intelligent, quick-witted, brilliant, bright, smart, alert, knowing

Analogous words: *quick, apt, ready, prompt: *versatile, all-around, many-sided: capable, competent, *able: *sharp, keen, acute

Antonyms: dull

Contrasted words: *stupid, slow, dense, crass: *simple, foolish, fatuous, asinine

2 Clever, adroit, cunning, ingenious are comparable when they mean having or showing a high degree of practical intelligence or of skill in contrivance.

Clever often carries an implication of physical dexterity but it usually stresses mental quickness or resourcefulness

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I became so clever with the gloves that Ned matched me against a lightweight— Shaw

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but Jane's mother had been too clever for him. . . . she had come to the dinner table primed to do just that thing— Mary Austin

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his judgments were wise rather than clever, his appreciations scholarly rather than sophisticated— Hilton

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Lowell was too clever to be sound— Brooks

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Sometimes it suggests a native aptitude or knack

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a dull fellow but very clever with horses

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Adroit usually suggests greater shrewdness and astuteness than clever and often implies the skillful (sometimes the crafty) use of expedients to attain one's ends in the face of difficulties

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the adroit William Penn . . . found means to stand well at the court of the persecuting James the Second— Montague

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one of the most adroit technicians ever to have employed the English language—J. M. Brown

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Cunning (see also SLY) may retain its older implications of learning and expert knowledge and is then chiefly applied to craftsmen or artists whose work exhibits a high degree of constructive or creative skill

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gnomes and brownies: the cunning little people who know how to use the bellows, the forge, the hammer, and the anvil— Mumford

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he knew how ... to construct a plot, he was cunning in his manipulation of stage effects— T. S. Eliot

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Ingenious stresses inventive power or skill in discovery ; sometimes it implies brilliancy of mind, sometimes little more than cleverness

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powerful and ingenious minds . . . may, by a course of . . . refined and metaphysical reasoning . . . explain away the constitution of our country— John Marshall

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this ingenious Yankee, quick to adapt himself everywhere, easily extricating himself from situations— Josephson

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Analogous words: *dexterous, deft, handy: nimble, *agile: *proficient, skillful, skilled, adept, expert, masterly

Contrasted words: inept, maladroit, *awkward, clumsy, gauche: *slow, laggard, dilatory