shrewdness

English

Etymology

shrewd +‎ -ness

Noun

shrewdness (countable and uncountable, plural shrewdnesses)

1. The quality of being shrewd.
   • 1837, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill, volume 2, page 245:

     A man with less worldly shrewdness would never have seen how things really stood; a man with less pliability could never have adapted himself to them. It must always be remembered, that his whole administration was one long struggle: he had to maintain his master on the throne, and himself in the ministry; and this was done by sheer force of talent.

2. An invented collective name for a group of apes.