too clever by half
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.17 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
3
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Shrewd but flawed by overthinking or excessive complexity, with a resulting tendency to be unreliable or unsuccessful.
Example Sentences
- "[H]e had a damnable suppleness and a gift of immediate response, a readiness to oblige, that made him seem to take up causes which he really left lying, enabled him to learn enough about them in an hour to have all the air of having converted them to his use. . . . He was at all events too clever by half, since this pernicious overflow had wrecked most of his attempts."
- "The poor devil was too clever by half, and made a big mistake for each of his strokes of genius."
- "Historians generally agree that Roosevelt was too clever by half, and that he miscalculated badly in assuming that he had the political muscle to alter the size of the Court."
- "Still, the thing about being just a little too clever by half is that it tends to catch up with you."
- "As Combet pointed out in 2009, that sort of too-clever-by-half politicking can get you into trouble. It can sink the boat you really want to sail."