cleverness

/ˈklɛvərnɪs/

/ˈklɛvənɪs/

Other forms: clevernesses

Cleverness is the quality someone has when they're funny and smart or inventive. If you're wise and witty, your cleverness is likely to make school a breeze.

It takes cleverness to solve a tricky logic problem, and it takes a slightly different kind of cleverness to tell a joke really well or come up with a funny response. When a person is clever, they're either very smart and quick-thinking, or they're witty. The meaning of cleverness has evolved over time, including meaning "attractiveness" and "agreeableness" in some dialects.

Definitions of cleverness

1. noun

   intelligence as manifested in being quick and witty
   synonyms: brightness, smartness

   type of:

   intelligence

   the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience
2. noun

   the power of creative imagination
   synonyms: ingeniousness, ingenuity, inventiveness

   types:

   imagination, resource, resourcefulness

   the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems

   armory, armoury, inventory

   a collection of resources

   type of:

   creative thinking, creativeness, creativity

   the ability to create
3. noun

   the property of being ingenious
   “the cleverness of its design”

   synonyms: ingeniousness, ingenuity

   type of:

   high quality, superiority

   the quality of being superior