| Main Entry: | |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | very smart person |
| Synonyms: | Einstein, academician, doctor, egghead, genius, highbrow, intellect, intellectual, mastermind, prodigy, pundit, sage, scholar |
| Antonyms: | dumbo, dumdum, simpleton |
| Main Entry: | acumen |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | ability to understand and reason |
| Synonyms: | acuity, acuteness, astuteness, awareness, brains, brilliance, cleverness, comprehension, cunning, discernment, discrimination, farsightedness, good taste, grasp, guile, ingenuity, insight, intellect, intelligence, intuition, judgment, keenness, perception, percipience, perspicacity, perspicuity, refinement, sagacity, sensitivity, sharpness, shrewdness, smartness, smarts, understanding, vision, wisdom, wit |
| Notes: | acumen suggests that keenness relates to a person's mind, whereas acuity suggests that it relates to a person's performance; acumen is something that a person has, whereas acuity is something that a person displays |
| Antonyms: | denseness, ignorance, inability, ineptness, obtuseness, stupidity |
| Main Entry: | authority |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | expert, animate or inanimate |
| Synonyms: | CEO, arbiter, aristocrat, bible, big cheese, big shot, big wig, boss, brains, brass, buff*, city hall, connoisseur, czar, egghead, establishment*, exec, executive, expert, feds, front office, governor, guru, ivory dome, judge, kingfish, kingpin, law*, power elite, pro, professional, professor, pundit, scholar, specialist, textbook, top brass, top dog, top hand, upstairs, veteran, virtuoso, whiz, wizard |
| Main Entry: | capacity |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | ability; competency |
| Synonyms: | adequacy, aptitude, aptness, bent, brains, caliber, capability, cleverness, compass, competence, efficiency, facility, faculty, forte, genius, gift, inclination, intelligence, knack, might, power, qualification, readiness, skill, stature, strength, talent, the goods, up to it, what it takes |
| Notes: | applied to a person, ability and capacity mean about the same thing but are grammatically different: an ability to do something, a capacity for doing something; ability is qualitative while capacity is quantitative capacity refers to a general ability to comprehend an issue or perform a task; capability implies a reference to one of a set of such abilities |
| Antonyms: | impotence, inability, incompetence |
| Main Entry: | cleverness |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | brightness, ingenuity |
| Synonyms: | ability, adroitness, astuteness, brains, calculation, canniness, dexterity, discernment, flair, gift, gumption, intelligence, quick wit, quickness, resourcefulness, sagacity, sense, sharpness, shrewdness, skill, smartness, talent, wisdom, wit |
| Antonyms: | foolishness, ignorance, naievety, senselessness, stupidity |
| Main Entry: | erudition |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | higher education |
| Synonyms: | bookishness, brains, cultivation, culture, enlightenment, intellectuality, knowledge, learnedness, learning, letters, literacy, lore, pedantry, refinement, savvy, scholarliness, scholarship, science, studiousness |
| Antonyms: | ignorance |
| Main Entry: | head |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | ability, intelligence |
| Synonyms: | aptitude, aptness, bent, brains, capacity, faculty, flair, genius, gift, intellect, knack, mentality, mind, talent, thought, turn, understanding |
| Antonyms: | ignorance, inability, stupidity |
| Main Entry: | ingenuity |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | cleverness |
| Synonyms: | ability, adroitness, astuteness, brains, brightness, brilliance, creativity, cunning, dexterity, flair, genius, gumption, intelligence, inventiveness, resourcefulness, shrewdness, skill, smartness, talent, wisdom, wit |
| Main Entry: | intellect |
| Part of Speech: | noun |
| Definition: | capability of the mind; someone with capable mind |
| Synonyms: | ability, acumen, brains, cerebration, comprehension, egghead, genius, intellectual, intellectuality, intelligence, intuition, judgment, mentality, mind, psyche, pundit, reason, savvy, sense, smarts, thinker, understanding, what it takes, wits |
| Antonyms: | ignorance |