All of Laptsev went to stare at the bride-to-be—she was no beauty, but everyone could see that she was clever, sophisticated …—Isaac Bashevis Singer, New Yorker, 29 Sept. 2003… the three of them may give Gray Davis, who was too clever for his own good, his comeuppance.—Garrison Keillor, Time, 25 Aug. 2003Some thought he had no redeeming value whatsoever. A sociopath. A clever manipulator …—Louise Erdrich, New Yorker, 2 Dec. 2002Those who can't write poetry, write clever letters to the editor. Those who can't write clever letters to the editor, write angry letters to the editor.—Matt Groening, Utne Reader, November/December 1987The old lady was clever enough and he thought that if she had started from any of the right premises, more might have been expected of her.—Flannery O'Connor, Everything That Rises Must Converge, 1967
Some cats are clever enough to figure out how to operate doorknobs.
That's the cleverest idea I've heard yet!
She found a clever hiding place for the letter.
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Later in the same game, Miami ran four verts with a clever outside receiver cross-field motion.—Ted Nguyen, New York Times, 28 Mar. 2025 The digital device is exhausted, the runtime stretches a tad too long, and a club scene that begins as an admirable feat (making clever use of the Music Box Theatre) begins to drag, before giving way to a crucial turning point in the story.—Shania Russell, EW.com, 28 Mar. 2025 This clever design adds extra decorative storage even in a small space.—Rachel Trujillo, People.com, 27 Mar. 2025 The new study, published in Child Development, suggests that such clever rule-bending behavior may actually show that a child is starting to better understand language—and other people.—Charlotte Hu, Scientific American, 27 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for clever
Word History
Etymology
Middle English cliver, perhaps of Scandinavian origin; akin to Danish dialect kløver alert, skillful
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