Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.
Was Will and Grace a clever play on words with the names? You need will and grace to survive. Hmmm... I bet I'm giving sitcom writers far too much credit.
'Cause I'm too messy, and then I'm too fucking clean You told me, "Get a job", then you ask where the hell I've been And I'm too perfect 'til I open my big mouth I want to be me, is that not allowed? And I'm too cleve…
Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.
My dad is quite clever with his hands, especially at carpentry.
Clever means: Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.. There is no real cause for parental concern; it is descriptive vocabulary rather than risky behaviour. If your teen uses it, context will usually make the intent clear. A short, curious question about where they heard it is usually all that is needed to know whether to follow up.
Slang is read by different audiences for very different reasons. The For parents view re-explains the term in plain, non-judgemental language so a caregiver can understand what their child means without needing the surrounding subculture. The For English learners view focuses on register (when it's safe to use), formal alternatives, and common mistakes — what a textbook won't teach you.
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Office-speak decoded — the corporate euphemisms, Agile rituals, and HR buzzwords you'll hear in every standup, retro, and performance review.
See all Corporate & Work slang on Slangora.
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This was doing really well until I tried to get clever and ruined it
Clever means: Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.. There is no real cause for parental concern; it is descriptive vocabulary rather than risky behaviour. If your teen uses it, context will usually make the intent clear. A short, curious question about where they heard it is usually all that is needed to know whether to follow up.
clever means: Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept.. Register: neutral, standard English. A common learner mistake is using the word in a register it does not fit, or assuming a single global meaning; native speakers immediately notice when slang appears in formal contexts, so always check the surrounding register before producing it yourself. A formal-English equivalent (a synonym or descriptive phrase) is usually safer in writing. When in doubt, paraphrase rather than reuse the slang form.
“🔮 Aquarius's May 05 Celestial Guidance: Novel systems attract attention as everyone debates process. A clever ESP8266 hack or Godot prototype could outpace corporate consensus; keep the rebellion useful and the docs readable. #techbro, #horoscope, #astrology, #Aquarius”
“Elite sophisticated clever cultured and generally better people on BSky shitting on functionally illiterate MAGA voters be like;”
“Splitting file editing, testing, and documentation across separate Claude instances while maintaining shared context is clever. Wonder if the orchestration overhead becomes a bottleneck at scale though.”
“Now I read it, I bet the Guardian thought they were being really clever, calling him a ‘fiddler’ rather than a violinist. I hope he sues them too, and that he wins both cases.”
“Okay so slight sting but all in all quite tolerable. The nurse was very sweet also. The sting is slowly getting stronger after, but let's see where it caps. Was a clever boy and took a hearty dose of OTC painkillers an hour before 💊”
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Quick to understand, learn, and devise or apply ideas; intelligent.
“Was Will and Grace a clever play on words with the names? You need will and grace to survive. Hmmm... I bet I'm giving sitcom writers far too much credit.”
“'Cause I'm too messy, and then I'm too fucking clean You told me, "Get a job", then you ask where the hell I've been And I'm too perfect 'til I open my big mouth I want to be me, is that not allowed? And I'm too clever and then I'm too fucking dumb”
“This was doing really well until I tried to get clever and ruined it”
“Here's a really fun and clever thing about PopoloCrois: much like Dragon Quest, in PopoloCrois dying doesn't take you to the last time you saved but instead you return to the last inn you visited with half of your money gone.”
“Richard Dawkins to this day believes people who talk to an imaginary friend are stupid, but when he talks to a Large Language Model he is very clever.”
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Mentally quick and resourceful; skilled at achieving what one wants in a mentally agile and inventive way.
: The Highland men, they're clever men At handling sword and shield,
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