noun
definition
The quality of being shrewd.
definition
An invented collective name for a group of apes.
Examples of shrewdness in a Sentence
His history is a curious compound of artlessness and shrewdness.
Gabel, who veiled under a mysterious reticence considerable financial ability and uncommon shrewdness, had great influence over the irresolute king.
He throws a flood of light upon the manners and ideas of his own age; he sometimes comments with surprising shrewdness upon the broader aspects and tendencies of history.
Benjamin was thick-set and stout, with an expression of great shrewdness.
To the virtues of liberality, charity and clemency he added the Machiavellian qualities of falsehood and shrewdness, so highly esteemed by the princes of his time.
He early discovered his vocation as a preacher of indulgences; he combined the elocutionary gifts of a revivalist orator with the shrewdness of an auctioneer.
His assumptions are based upon ordinary observation and experience, and are usually accurate in proportion to his practical shrewdness and sagacity, so that he is not interested in the speculative flights of philosophy, except in so far as they influence or have influenced conduct.
A man of great force of character and much ability, of keen ambitions and unusual shrewdness, though not remarkable for breadth of mind, he attained to great influence in the executive government and was soon the leading spirit in that dominant group known in Upper Canadian history as the Family Compact.
But the king's shrewdness triumphed before long over his vengeance, and the more serviceable of the officers of Charles VII.
Progress, or at all events change, does indeed take place, though very slowly, since the most primitive savage we know of has his portion of human intelligence, looks after and before, nay, in regard to the pressing needs of every day shows a quite remarkable shrewdness and resource.
Convinced from the first of his disinterestedness and sincerity, and impressed by his penetrating shrewdness and his instinctive faculty of always seizing the main point and sticking to it, his hearers soon felt an absolute confidence in the deputy from Zala county.
The peasantry, however, are far from dull, and betray much shrewdness where their interests are concerned.
While shrewdness, plain straightforwardness, and a certain stern way of looking at life are common to both, the Icelandic school adds a complexity of structure and ornament, an elaborate mythological and enigmatical phraseology, and a regularity of rhyme, assonance, luxuriance, quantity and syllabification, which it caught from the Latin and Celtic poets, and adapted with exquisite ingenuity to its own main object, that of securing the greatest possible beauty of sound.
But her life shows her to have been, besides, a woman of strong practicality and good sense, full of natural shrewdness, and with unusual powers of organization.
Back to top The play reveals a fascination with language, which suggests much about a speaker's shrewdness or lack of it.
He combined this shrewdness with deeply held, and perhaps rather morbid religious feelings.
He used this rather prestigious platform with considerable shrewdness a skill for which he is rightly renowned.
She had got to know the heart of the peasant - his superstitions, his suspiciousness and low cunning, no less than his shrewdness, his sturdy independence and his strong domestic attachments.
In one considerable comic fragment attributed to him - the description of a coquette - there is great truth and shrewdness of observation.
His common sense appears in his rejection of Hutchinson's attempt to prove that the Bible supplies a complete system of physical science, and his shrewdness in his Notes on Scripture Texts (1747).
His wisdom excelled that of Egypt and of the children of the East; by the latter may be meant Babylonia, or more probably the Arabs, renowned through all ages for their shrewdness.
She was famous for her shrewdness and prophetic gifts, which enabled her to foretell the future greatness of her husband and of Servius Tullius.
Many detached sayings scattered throughout the book show a depth of insight, or a practical shrewdness, or again a power of concise speech, which stamps them on the memory.
She revived that faith; she consolidated her throne; she not only captivated the affections of the multitude, but won the respect of thoughtful men; and all this she achieved by methods which to her predecessors would have seemed impracticable - methods which it required no less shrewdness to discover than force of character and honesty of heart to adopt steadfastly.
However, if one designs to construct a dwelling-house, it behooves him to exercise a little Yankee shrewdness, lest after all he find himself in a workhouse, a labyrinth without a clue, a museum, an almshouse, a prison, or a splendid mausoleum instead.