Meanings
comparative more shrewdly · superlative most shrewdly
- In a shrewd manner.
1 more example
Thanks to that penny he had just spent so recklessly [on a newspaper] he would pass a happy hour, taken, for once, out of his anxious, despondent, miserable self. It irritated him shrewdly to know that these moments of respite from carking care would not be shared with his poor wife, with careworn, troubled Ellen.
1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter I, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 0056
Synonyms & antonyms
adverbin a shrewd manner
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Middle Englishschrewed
- Proto-Indo-European*leyg-
- Proto-Germanic*līką
- Middle Englishschrewedly
- Englishshrewdly
Inherited from Middle English schrewedly (“wickedly, harshly”). By surface analysis, shrewd + -ly.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Czech chytře
- chytřein a shrewd manner
Finnish ovelasti, terävästi
- ovelastiin a shrewd manner
- terävästiin a shrewd manner
French astucieusement, avec perspicacité
- astucieusementin a shrewd manner
- avec perspicacitéin a shrewd manner
German geschickt
- geschicktin a shrewd manner
Italian scaltramente, astutamente
- scaltramentein a shrewd manner
- astutamentein a shrewd manner
Polish chytrze
- chytrzein a shrewd manner
Portuguese astutamente
- astutamentein a shrewd manner
Spanish astutamente, con perspicacia
- astutamentein a shrewd manner
- con perspicaciain a shrewd manner
Swedish klokt
- kloktin a shrewd manner
Cite this entry
shrewdly. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shrewdly
“shrewdly.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shrewdly. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shrewdly,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shrewdly.
Source: shrewdly on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.