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ess of intellect, skill, dexterity, talent, or adroitness; expert. Though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. Macaulay. Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever. C. Kingsley.

Somewhat clever. [R.]

In a clever manner. Never was man so clever absurd. C. Smart.

The quality of being clever; skill; dexterity; adroitness.

intellectual qualifications, or strong mental powers; showing ability or skill; talented; clever; powerful; as, the ablest man in the senate; an able speech. No man wrote abler state papers. Macaulay.

Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to Ant: dull or Ant: stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.

The quality of being arch; cleverness; sly humor free from malice; waggishness. Goldsmith.

The practice or peculiar cleverness of attorneys.

Clever; sharp; shrewd; ingenious; cunning. [Colloq.]

Apt; fit; dexterous; clever; handy; spruce; neat. [Archaic or Poetic] "The deftest way." Shak. "Deftest feats." Gay. The limping god, do deft at his new ministry. Dryden. Let me be deft and debonair. Byron.

who composes epigrams, or makes use of them. The brisk epigrammatist showing off his own cleverness. Holmes.

ifice; to avoid by dexterity, subterfuge, address, or ingenuity; to elude; to escape from cleverly; as, to evade a blow, a pursuer, a punishment; to evade the force of an argument. The heathen had a method, more truly their own, of evading the Christian miracles. Trench.

facility of operation or performance from practice; knowing and ready from much practice; clever; skillful; as, an expert surgeon; expert in chess or archery. A valiant and most expert gentleman. Shak. What practice, howsoe'er expert In fitting aptest words to things . . . Hath power to give thee as thou wert Tennison.…

Clever; skillful; dexterous; ready; handy; -- followed especially by at. He . . . is a good workman; a very good tailor. Shak. Those are generally good at flattering who are good for nothing else. South.

Skillful; dexterous; clever. [Obs.] Chaucer.

In an ingenious manner; with ingenuity; skillfully; wittily; cleverly. "Too ingeniously politic." Sir W. Temple.

Curiousness, or cleverness in design or contrivance; as, the ingenuity of a plan, or of mechanism. He gives . . . To artist ingenuity and skill. Cowper.

let him rymes make. Chaucer. Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. Milton. I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry, that is; prose -- words in their best order; poetry -- the best order. Coleridge.

ick to discern or distinguish; having nice discrimination; acute; penetrating; sagacious; clever; as, a sharp eye; sharp sight, hearing, or judgment. Nothing makes men sharper . . . than want. Addison. Many other things belong to the material world, wherein the sharpest philosophers have never yeL. Watts.…

Able or clever in practical affairs; sharp in business; astute; sharp-witted; sagacious; keen; as, a shrewd observer; a shrewd design; a shrewd reply. Professing to despise the ill opinion of mankind creates a shrewd suspicion that we have deserved it. Secker.