Same or similar entry in other lexica. For the several senses of this headword, a feminine noun, see LSJ s.v.
[1] Also "cleverness" or "quickness of mind", as Aristotle seems to understand deino/ths in the context of his discussion of fro/nhsis. Cleverness, Aristotle says, is a capacity which allows one to hit a target at which one is aiming. The goodness or badness of cleverness depends on the quality of the target (skopo/s) the agent has set before him: if it is fine or noble, cleverness is praiseworthy; if it is base, it is reduced to cunning or mere villainy (panourgi/a). Aristotle stresses that, while prudence is not cleverness, it does not exist without cleverness (Nicomachean Ethics 1144a26-29). Both cleverness and prudence presuppose a certain kind of knowledge (in fact, prudence is a sort of cleverness), but while the former may aim at what is evil (when associated to kaki/a), the latter just aims at what is fine or noble. But the actual ability to do the things tending to the proposed end corresponds to cleverness.