the.com/shrewdness
The word for cleverness, and also what you call a group of apes — nature's inside joke.
means Sharp, practical intelligence — the kind that reads situations correctly and knows how to turn them to advantage.
from From 'shrewd,' which originally meant wicked or malicious — borrowed from 'shrew,' the small, sharp-toothed mammal long (and unfairly) believed to have a venomous, vicious bite. Over centuries 'shrewd' softened from 'evil-natured' to 'cunning' to today's more complimentary 'astute.' The collective noun 'a shrewdness of apes' is a much later, playful coinage, part of the old English tradition of inventing fanciful group-names for animals — nature's joke being that the apes didn't ask for the compliment.
- collective noun
- A group of apes is a shrewdness
- root origin
- From shrew, once thought sly and malicious
- irony alert
- Shrews are actually nearly blind and dim
- modern use
- Now means sharp practical judgment, not malice