Definition of "acumen"
acumen
noun
usually uncountable, plural acumens or acumina
Quickness of perception or discernment; penetration of mind; the faculty of nice discrimination.
Quotations
"I am going to ask you a question that does not require much legal acumen to answer," said Lord Meersbrook to his attorney, when he called the next day in Lincoln's Inn;...
1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter XXXVII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 168
Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. […] A silver snaffle on a heavy leather watch guard which connected the pockets of his corduroy waistcoat, together with a huge gold stirrup in his Ascot tie, sufficiently proclaimed his tastes. […] But withal there was a perceptible acumen about the man which was puzzling in the extreme.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
(botany) A sharp, tapering point extending from a plant.
Quotations
The black star of the corolla, characteristic of the original form, the manyfloweredness of the inflorescence (often connected with —4 whirls), upper leaves in the inflorescence, adpression of the acumina of the calyx, its size, the closely situated anthers, long pistils, the length of the pedicel above and below the articulation and the thickness of the pedicel dominate.
1930, Prilozhenie, page 519
Herbs with long creeping stolons; leaves with coarse white hairs, or glabrous. The arched corolla lobes and large acumens give the corolla a circular appearance with acumens standing out sharply from it. Corolla occasionally, however, substellate.
1978, chapter 2, in The Potato Crop: The scientific basis for improvement, page 30
In our opinion, specimens of I. pilifera represent a robust expression of I. sinensis with many stem and branch leaves becoming strongly concave and broadly ovate to obovate in outline, thereby intensifying the abrupt contraction of the pilaferous acumens. It is best accepted as a variety of N. comes. The length of leaf acumens is another variable character expressed by Barbella amoena. Thus, it is also better combined with the var. pilifera as a synonym.
1990, Cryptogamic Botany, Volume 2, page 315
They examined the characters that were used by Paris (1908) to distinguish C. japonicum Broth. ex Paris from C. tonkinense: “Les charactères invoqués par Paris [Rev. Bryol., p. 46, 1908) pour distinguer la plante du Tonkin de celle du Japon s’évanouissent à l’examen, …”, and stated that the acumina of the leaves are narrower, and that those of the amphigastria are narrower and longer in C. japonicum Broth. ex Paris than in C. tonkinense.
2002, Blumea Supplement, page 327
(anatomy) A bony, often sharp, protuberance, especially that of the ischium.
Quotations
The rostrum is the anterior extension of the carapace between the eyes. It ends in a more or less acute tip, or acumen, and may have a lateral spine on each side or bear a longitudinal keel (carina) on the dorsal surface.
c. 1918, University of California, Pamphlets on Biology: Kofoid collection, Volume 1586, page 692