clever-clever
English
Etymology
Reduplication of clever.
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈklɛvəklɛvə/
Adjective
clever-clever (comparative more clever-clever, superlative most clever-clever)
- (pejorative) Showily or ostentatiously clever.
- 1994: The difference between clever-clever talk and the appearance of a real awareness is desperately fine, and I do not guarantee to be right in my diagnosis every time. — Christmas Humphreys, Zen Comes West (Routledge 1994, p. 107)
- 2000: He is not merely clever but ‘clever-clever’, and he cannot forget that it was during his previous term at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Denmark kept out of the 1914-18 war... — Michael Stenton, Radio London and Resistance in Occupied Europe (OUP 2000, p. 251)
- 2007: You used to know where you stood with musicals. There were the old traditionals with scores by Rodgers and Hammerstein; the clever-clever shows with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; and the bombastic 'supermusicals', with sub-operatic numbers. — Sarah Hughes, The Observer 15 July 2007