Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The state or quality of being shrewd.
- noun Sagaciousness; astuteness; sharpness: as, a man of great shrewdness and penetration.
- noun A company or group (of apes).
- noun Synonyms see
shrewd .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The quality of being
shrewd . - noun An invented collective name for a group of
apes .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun intelligence manifested by being astute (as in business dealings)
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shrewdness.
Examples
-
The accumulation of fortunes through foresight, unusual capacity, energy, thrift, and native honorable shrewdness is in itself no crime.
Philanthropy 2007
-
The accumulation of fortunes through foresight, unusual capacity, energy, thrift, and native honorable shrewdness is in itself no crime.
Philanthropy 2007
-
She's not entirely lacking in shrewdness, though, since she knows that to some extent her best shot at revising our perceptions of her is to accede to them.
Calamity Jane 2005
-
She's not entirely lacking in shrewdness, though, since she knows that to some extent her best shot at revising our perceptions of her is to accede to them.
Calamity Jane 2005
-
What others called shrewdness she, remembering his Grandfather Barclay, knew might grow into blind, cruel greed, and when she thought of his voice and his curly hair, and recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, singing ne'er-do-well of her family, and then in the boy's hardening mouth and his canine jaw saw
A Certain Rich Man William Allen White 1906
-
As the Devil is ordinarily by no means wanting in shrewdness, the omission might perhaps be set down to his credit on the score of charity, but for his abominable taste in matters of diabolical vertûe, as shown by his penchant for sanguinary signatures to all compacts and bonds for bad behavior made with or exacted by him, in the course of his "regular dealings" with mankind, and hence it must be considered a clear case of ignorance or oversight, that this test, compared to which there is toleration for boils even, was not applied.
-
Although, wouldn’t that be an ironic twist if Ben did end up being the most trustworthy because the reasons for his manipulation involve a greater good, and his manipulating, conniving shrewdness is the only way for that greater good to be achieved?
-
Nevertheless the philosopher [* Andronicus; Cf.Q. 48, Obj. 1] who calls shrewdness a part of prudence, takes it for _eustochia_, in general, hence he says: "Shrewdness is a habit whereby congruities are discovered rapidly."
Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas
-
He was uneducated, but he possessed that exact knowledge of mankind that makes leaders; and his shrewdness was the result of caution and suspicion.
Half a Rogue Harold MacGrath 1901
-
Shrewd beyond most men, his shrewdness was the clear, piercing vision of a clean, single heart, that knew not how to
skipvia commented on the word shrewdness
See shrewdness of apes.
November 16, 2007