CLEVERNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does cleverness mean? 

• CLEVERNESS (noun)
  The noun CLEVERNESS has 3 senses:

1. the power of creative imagination

2. intelligence as manifested in being quick and witty

3. the property of being ingenious

  Familiarity information: CLEVERNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CLEVERNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The power of creative imagination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity; inventiveness

Hypernyms ("cleverness" is a kind of...):

creative thinking; creativeness; creativity (the ability to create)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "cleverness"):

imagination; resource; resourcefulness (the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Intelligence as manifested in being quick and witty

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

brightness; cleverness; smartness

Hypernyms ("cleverness" is a kind of...):

intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)

Derivation:

clever (mentally quick and resourceful)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The property of being ingenious

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity

Context example:

the cleverness of its design

Hypernyms ("cleverness" is a kind of...):

high quality; superiority (the quality of being superior)

Derivation:

clever (showing inventiveness and skill)

 Context examples 

Then she strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her cleverness, and said, “How very neat and clean it looks!”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

The cook came up the side like a monkey for cleverness, and as soon as he saw what was doing, “So ho, mates!” says he.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

You stand in the way not merely of an individual, but of a mighty organization, the full extent of which you, with all your cleverness, have been unable to realize.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It was simple enough, sir, if you only had known, but, with all your cleverness, it was impossible that you could know.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

The old coachman, who had been waiting about with his own horse, now joining them, Fanny was lifted on hers, and they set off across another part of the park; her feelings of discomfort not lightened by seeing, as she looked back, that the others were walking down the hill together to the village; nor did her attendant do her much good by his comments on Miss Crawford's great cleverness as a horse-woman, which he had been watching with an interest almost equal to her own.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Pray, with all your cleverness, why did not you manage to keep your eyes open?

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

And he pinched me the third time with the same air of cleverness.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

You have all the cleverness which makes a successful man.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)