English · Idiom Candidate

box clever

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To act cleverly and strategically, often to gain an advantage

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

hành động thông minh và chiến lược, thường để đạt được lợi thế

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: to fight using clever boxing tactics

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Boxing clever … teacher Sue Lyonette with pupils at Ladymount School

Soon he is befriended by the kindly German ‘ Doc’(Armin Mueller - Stahl) who is interned in the local prison And we see him taught to box and fend fro himself by a likeable petty thief (Morgan Freeman).

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “box clever” mean?

To act cleverly and strategically, often to gain an advantage Literally: to fight using clever boxing tactics

Is “box clever” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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