astute

as·tute

adj \ə-ˈstüt, a-, -ˈstyüt\

Definition of ASTUTE

: having or showing shrewdness and perspicacity <an astute observer> <astute remarks>; also : crafty, wily

— as·tute·ly adverb

— as·tute·ness noun

Examples of ASTUTE

1. He is an astute observer of the current political scene.
2. Astute readers will notice the error.
3. His analysis of the battle was very astute.
4. We thought they were not very intellectually astute, but we didn't really understand how political a lot of what they were doing was. —Ben Wallace-Wells, Rolling Stone, 15 Nov. 2007
5. He asked astute diagnosticians around the country how they approached and cracked difficult diagnoses and what happened when they failed. Misdiagnosis is not an insignificant problem: Groopman cites a finding that between one in six and one in seven patients is incorrectly assessed. —Ruth Levy Guyer, Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2007
6. And finally, even if she had never actually uttered the bon mot that would be famously attributed to her, that if she had two heads, she would risk one in the king's service, could the astute young duchess actually have had input into the implausible negotiations? —Harvey Rachlin, Scandals, Vandals, and Da Vincis, 2007
7. Focusing largely upon Western alchemy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, she has a sharp eye for how alchemical images surface in literature of that period. Readers of Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare will find illuminating insights. Abraham reveals the far reaches of her astute literary intelligence by analyzing alchemical imagery encoded in a broad range of works, from Chaucer and Milton to Vladimir Nabokov and P.G. Wodehouse. —Norman Weinstein, Parabola, November 1999

Origin of ASTUTE

Latin astutus, from astus craft

First Known Use: 1565

Related to ASTUTE

Synonyms: shrewd, canny, clear-eyed, clear-sighted, hard-boiled, hardheaded, heady, knowing, savvy, sharp, sharp-witted, smart

Antonyms: unknowing

Related Words: artful, cagey (also cagy), crafty, cunning, devious, dodgy [chiefly British], foxy, guileful, pawky [chiefly British], slick, sly, subtle, tricky, wily; discerning, insightful, perceptive, percipient, perspicacious, sagacious, sage, sapient, wise; experienced, veteran; discriminating, discriminative; agile, alert, brainy, bright, brilliant, clever, intelligent, keen, nimble, quick, quick-witted, sharp-eyed, sharp-sighted; apt, ingenious, resourceful; calculating, scheming

Near Antonyms: artless, guileless, ingenuous, innocent, naive (or naïve); exploitable, gullible (also gullable); unperceptive, unwise; dense, dull, obtuse; airheaded, birdbrained, brain-dead, brainless, dim-witted, dopey (also dopy), dumb, empty-headed, feebleminded, gormless [chiefly British], half-witted, knuckleheaded, lamebrain (or lamebrained), lunkheaded, simple, slow, slow-witted, softheaded, stupid, thickheaded, thick-witted, unintelligent, weak-minded; foolish, idiotic (also idiotical), imbecile (or imbecilic), moronic, silly, thoughtless, witless; ignorant, uninformed

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See Synonym Discussion at shrewd

Rhymes with ASTUTE

acute, Asyût, bear fruit, beetroot, Beirut, birthroot, bloodroot, breadfruit, butut, cahoot, Canute, catsuit, cheroot, choucroute, clubroot, commute, compute, confute, crapshoot, cube root, deaf-mute, depute, dilute, dispute, dry suit, elute, en route, enroot, flight suit, folkmoot, freeboot, galoot, grapefruit, G suit, hardboot, hip boot, hirsute, imbrute, impute, jackboot, jackfruit, jumpsuit, kashruth, lawsuit, long suit, lounge suit, minute, nonsuit, offshoot, outshoot, Paiute, pantsuit, permute, playsuit, pollute, pursuit, recruit, refute, repute, salute, sans doute, seaboot, snowsuit, solute, square root, star fruit, star route, statute, strong suit, sunsuit, sweat suit, swimsuit, take root, taproot, to boot, tracksuit, trade route, transmute, tribute, uproot, volute, wet suit, zoot suit