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Reader question: Could you explain “streetwise” in this sentence – Yu Zecheng is a streetwise Communist agent planted in a Kuomintang secret spy organization. My comments: People who are streetwise or street smart know how to deal with situations in the “street”, or the real world. “Street smarts”, usually plural, is the noun referring to such knowledge and know-how gained from actually surviving on the street instead of the classroom. In other words, people who are streetwise have a lot of practical knowledge to enable them to survive in tough real-life situations. They are not bookworms who may have done well in school but find it hard to cope with situations that ask for one’s instincts, common sense and perhaps sheer guts and fearlessness. For example, I recall a report a few years ago of a woman who had completed her postgraduate studies being sold by human traffickers to a poverty-stricken peasant, to be his wife. It was not done by force, not initially at any rate but instead she was just sweet-talked into believing stories from strangers. Now, the traffickers might not be able to read or write. If they have any cleverness, that cleverness (or cunning in this case) is what you may call street smarts. The woman in question could read or write, to say the least, but obviously she didn’t have the street smarts to prevent her from being duped by the said crooks and criminals. Sad tale to tell but, well, you get the picture. Here are media examples of each – streetwise (adjective) and street smarts (noun): | 
