genius

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Lincoln was what we call a genius -- a genius, that is, in the sense in which Shakespeare or Napoleon or Galileo was a genius.

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Definitions (22)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. noun Extraordinary intellectual and creative power.
  2. noun A person of extraordinary intellect and talent: "One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius” (Simone de Beauvoir).
  3. noun A person who has an exceptionally high intelligence quotient, typically above 140.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples

  • His comment, at once so spontaneous and so apt, is a delightful touch of the Poet's art; and tells us that Shakespeare's judgment as well as his genius was at home in the secret of a perfect style; and that he understood, no man better, the essential poverty of —  Shakespeare His Life Art And Characters
  • That he should have retired from the exercise of his art while in the full flower of his genius is a perplexing fact. —  The Great Italian and French Composers
  • But though this must be acknowledged, perhaps it will not necessarily follow that his genius was therefore superior. —  The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland
  • And yet, neither Columbus, nor Washington, nor Lincoln was what we call a genius — a genius, that is, in the sense in which Shakespeare or Napoleon or Galileo was a genius. —  American Men of Action
  • Lincoln was what we call a genius -- a genius, that is, in the sense in which Shakespeare or Napoleon or Galileo was a genius. —  American Men of Action
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

talent ·  imagination ·  wisdom ·  spirit ·  intelligence ·  art ·  poetry ·  taste ·  poet ·  sentiment ·  instinct
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, guardian spirit, from Latin; see genə- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Latin genius, the tutelar spirit of a person, spirit, inclination, wit, genius, literally ‘inborn nature’ (nature is from the same root), from gignere, Old Latin genere, ✓ gen, beget, produce: see genus.
 

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/ˈdʒinɪəs/
by American Heritage

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