Adjective

(er)

Concise and meaningful.

* 1825 , ,

Mr. Lamb, on the contrary, being "native to the manner here," though he too has borrowed from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular and admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successful researches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not the least pithy or pleasant of our writers.

* 1873 April 25, (editor), ''The Chemical News ,

The following passage, which is exquisitely pithy and exquisitely modest, winds up the description:- "In this apparatus there is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness."

* 1876 , ,

IT was a pithy' saying that of Lorenzo de' Medici, and true as ' pithy , that we are enjoined to forgive our enemies, but nowhere are we told that we should forgive our friends.

Of, like, or abounding in pith.

* 1863 , ,

Must we know the torrid zone only through travelled bananas, plucked too soon and pithy ? or by bottled anacondas? or by the tarry-flavored slang of forecastle-bred paroquets?

* 1910 , , Suggestions and Reminders I: For the North, April,

Parsnip .—Dig the roots before they grow and become soft and pithy .

* 1911 , ,

To summarize the characters of a true mushroom - it grows only in pastures; it is of small size, dry, and with unchangeable flesh; the cap has a frill; the gills are free from the stem, the spores brown-black or deep purple-black in colour, and the stem solid or slightly pithy .

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.