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Clever vs Inchoate - What's the difference?

clever | inchoate |

As adjectives the difference between clever and inchoate

is that clever is nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept while inchoate is recently started but not fully formed yet; just begun; only elementary or immature.

As a noun inchoate is

(rare) a beginning, an immature start.

As a verb inchoate is

to begin or start something.

clever

English

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Nimble with hands or body; skillful; adept.
  • * (Francis James Child) (collator), , 198: "Bonny John Seton",
  • The Highland men, they're clever men / At handling sword and shield,
  • Resourceful, sometimes to the point of cunning.
  • * 1890 , (Joseph Jacobs) (collator), '', ''English Fairy Tales ,
  • The youngest of the three strange lassies was called Molly Whuppie, and she was very clever . She noticed that before they went to bed the giant put straw ropes round her neck and her sisters', and round his own lassies' necks, he put gold chains. So Molly took care and did not fall asleep, but waited till she was sure every one was sleeping sound. Then she slipped out of the bed, and took the straw ropes off her own and her sisters' necks, and took the gold chains off the giant's lassies. She then put the straw ropes on the giant's lassies and the gold on herself and her sisters, and lay down.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers.
  • Smart, intelligent, or witty; mentally quick or sharp.
  • * 1860 , (John Timbs), School-Days of Eminent Men , page 177,
  • has said of Bunyan: “though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. One of these minds produced ‘The Paradise Lost;’ the other, ‘The Pilgrim's Progress.’”
  • * 1912', (Fyodor Dostoevsky), (Constance Garnett) (translator), '''', Book V, Chapter 7: "It's Always Worth While Speaking to a ' Clever Man",
  • I would have sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don't see that? You know nothing about timber, but you've got an eye.
  • * (rfdate), (Charles Kingsley), ,
  • Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; / Do noble things, not dream them all day long: / And so make life, death, and that vast forever / One grand, sweet song.
  • Showing inventiveness or originality; witty.
  • * 1816 , (Jane Austen), , Volume 1, Chapter 9,
  • Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting in. "So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time." And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid."
  • * 1919 , , Chapter III,
  • I felt they expected me to say clever things, and I never could think of any till after the party was over.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011, date=April 10, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle , passage=Just before the break Villa were denied a second goal when Bent had the ball in the net, although he was ruled offside after Jean Makoun's clever pass.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-04-11, author= Ron Charles
  • , volume=190, issue=18, page=37, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= David Grand’s ‘Mount Terminus’ , passage=The Rosenbloom Loop is a clever' little device, but it’s an even more ' clever symbol of the role that discipline plays in the creation of illusion: the persistence of vision that makes sequential still images appear to move.}}
  • Possessing magical abilities.
  • * 1904 , Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales, Vol. XXXVIII, page 255,
  • When a clever man is out hunting and comes across the tracks of, say, a kangaroo, he follows them along and talks to the footprints all the time for the purpose of injecting magic into the animal which made them.
  • * 1947 , Oceania, Volumes 16-17, page 330,
  • Prior to this, the two women, who were “clever ,” and possessed a certain amount of magical “power,”.
  • * 1991 , John & Sue Erbacher, Aborigines of the Rainforest ,
  • Fred is the clever fellow or tribal doctor who practises with the Kuku-Yalanji people. The tribal doctor’s work includes curing sickness, finding out the causes of death, predicting the future and making and stopping rain.
  • (label) Fit; suitable; having propriety.
  • * (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)
  • 'Twould sound more clever / To me and to my heirs forever.
  • (label) Well-shaped; handsome.
  • * (John Arbuthnot) (1667-1735)
  • The girl was a tight, clever wench as any was.
  • Good-natured; obliging.
  • Synonyms

    * quick-witted, sharp-witted ** See also * cunning, street-smart * (nimble or skillful) adroit, talented * (showing inventiveness) ingenious * (possessing magical powers)

    Antonyms

    * dull, stupid * ineffectual, naive * (nimble or skillful) clumsy * (showing inventiveness) * (possessing magical powers)

    Derived terms

    * cleverality * cleverly * cleverness * too clever by half

    inchoate

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Recently started but not fully formed yet; just begun; only elementary or immature.
  • * Raleigh
  • neither a substance perfect, nor a substance inchoate
  • Chaotic, disordered, confused; also, incoherent, rambling.
  • Quotations

    {{timeline, 1600s=1677, 1800s=1803 1839 1885 1892, 1900s=1919 1928, 2000s=2004}} * 1677 , , The Art of Contentment , p. 187 *: It do's indeed perfect and crown tho?e graces which were here inchoate and begun, but no mans conver?ion ever ?ucceeded his being there ... * 1803 , *: This appointment is evidenced by an open, unequivocal act, and, being the last act required from the person making it, necessarily excludes the idea of its being, so far as it respects the appointment, an inchoate and incomplete transaction. * 1839 , *: It being determined that a constitution should be made for the inchoate government, men were selected by its sponsors, from those at the Illinois Camp Ground, including as many western Cherokees as could be induced to sign it. * 1885 , *: ...unfortunately, we have to face inchoate schemes which will demand the utmost jealousy and vigilance of Parliament. * *: The private conception of any breach of law is apt to be inspiriting, for the scheme (while yet inchoate ) wears dashing and attractive colours. * 1892 , George Gissing, Born In Exile *: A youth whose brain glowed like a furnace, whose heart throbbed with tumult of high ambitions, of inchoate desires. * 1919 , *: Very odd and ugly were these beings, as indeed are most beings of a world yet inchoate and rudely fashioned. * 1928 , *: How inutterably sad was the look this fluid inchoate figure of the wolf threw from his beautiful shy eyes. * 2004 , , " Folk Hero]", [[w:The New Yorker, The New Yorker] , 29 March 2004 *: Guthrie’s inchoate socialist leanings grew into a deep commitment to the labor movement.

    Synonyms

    * (started but not fully formed): elementary, embryonic, immature, incipient, nascent, rudimentary

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rare) A beginning, an immature start.
  • Verb

    (inchoat)
  • To begin or start something.
  • To cause or bring about.
  • To make a start.
  • Anagrams

    * * ----