What is "shrewd"

Usage examples of "shrewd".

Weeden gave it to his companion after the end, as a mute clue to the abnormality which had occurred, or whether, as is more probable, Smith had it before, and added the underscoring himself from what he had managed to extract from his friend by shrewd guessing and adroit cross-questioning.

So shrewd, that he had found it difficult to get backers for his schemes, until Alker came along.

When Matesi struggled to escape a shrewd crack over his scalp with a marlin spike quieted him and, with his mates, he was shoved into the longboat and rowed out to where the Gull lay anchored at the edge of the shoals.

Hitler was shrewd enough to see that his trial, far from finishing him, would provide a new platform from which he could not only discredit the compromised authorities who had arrested him but - and this was more important - for the first time make his name known far beyond the confines of Bavaria and indeed of Germany itself.

His present wealth had also caught an even shrewder financial magician in his net: Gaius Rabirius Postumus, whose thanks for reorganizing the shambles of the Egyptian public accounting system had been to be stripped naked by King Ptolemy Auletes and his Alexandrian minions, and shoved penniless on a ship bound for Rome.

He might even be shrewd enough to claim that he had found the Aureole Mine on his own property.

Those who thought to use Orna and Uryan for their purposes were mistaken, for the Lady Orna, of trading stock and shrewd, was no easily befooled female of the inner courts.

A man of some fifty years of age, with a quizzical expression and shrewd grey eyes, he received us with that delightful bonhomie of manner which was well known to be one of his principal assets.

Sudely and Boteler and Noel are shrewd folk, and the wool-staplers are shrewder.

Whereupon, with a serene and cheerful countenance, up rose the mighty form of Amyas Leigh, a head and shoulders above his tormentor, and that slate descended on the bald coxcomb of Sir Vindex Brimblecombe, with so shrewd a blow that slate and pate cracked at the same instant, and the poor pedagogue dropped to the floor, and lay for dead.

My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon, and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers, to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road, late in the day, with cunner line in hand.

Grand Street, and Dodger led the way to an apple-stand, presided over by a lady of ample proportions, whose broad, Celtic face seemed to indicate alike shrewd good sense and a kindly spirit.

And it was apparent that Holymead was a shrewd judge of human nature, Crewe reflected, for he calculated that the rareness of the quality of observation, even in those who, like Flack, were supposed to keep their eyes open, would permit him to do so unnoticed.

They were all men who lived with horses and professed to love them, though none knew how to bleed a horse for that was a job left to servants, but finally a Scottish major averred that he had a shrewd idea of how the thing was done, and so he was given the fleam and its hammer.

Here, Soy Foon observed a shrewd, leering face - a countenance that betokened both stealth and swiftness.