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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

clever.

Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈklɛv.ə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈklɛv.ɚ/General-American

  1. Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.

  2. Quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent.

  3. Mentally quick and resourceful; skilled at achieving what one wants in a mentally agile and inventive way.

    clever like a fox
    With a clever lawyer, she could easily be acquitted.

  4. Smart, intelligent, or witty; mentally quick or sharp.

  5. Sane; in one's right mind.

    archaic

  6. Showing mental quickness and resourcefulness.

    This is a simple but clever trick to solve the problem.

  7. Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.

  8. Fit and healthy; free from fatigue or illness.

    UK · colloquial

  9. Good-natured; obliging.

    US · dated

  10. Possessing magical abilities.

  11. Fit; suitable; having propriety.

    obsolete

  12. Well-shaped; handsome.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From East Anglian dialectal English cliver (“expert at seizing”), from Middle English cliver (“tenacious”). * perhaps from Old English *clifer, clibbor (“clinging”); * or perhaps from Dutch, Low German, or East/Saterland Frisian (compare kluftich (“clever, prudent”), probably derived from Proto-West Germanic *kleuban (“to cleave, split”)); * or dialectal Norwegian klover (“ready, skillful”), itself borrowed from Middle Low German klever, related to kleven (“to stick”), from Old Saxon klibōn, from Proto-West Germanic *klibēn, related to the Old English word above; * possibly influenced by Old English clifer (“claw, hand”) (compare clawian (“to claw”)). Related to cleave. Perhaps influenced by Welsh celfydd (“talented, dexterous, expert”). Compare typologically Czech chytrý, Russian хи́трый (xítryj) (akin to хвата́ть (xvatátʹ)), also note схва́тывать на лету́ (sxvátyvatʹ na letú).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.