Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Marked by inventive skill and imagination.
- adj. Having or arising from an inventive or cunning mind; clever: an ingenious scheme. See Synonyms at clever.
- adj. Obsolete Having genius; brilliant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Possessing inventive genius or faculty; apt in inventing, contriving, or constructing; skilful in the use of things or words: as, an ingenious mechanic; an ingenious author.
- Mentally bright or clever; witty; conversable.
- Marked or characterized by inventive genius; displaying or proceeding from skill in contrivance or construction; witty or clever in form or spirit; well conceived; apt: as, an ingenious machine; an ingenious process or performance; ingenious criticism.
- Manifesting or requiring mental brightness or cleverness; intellectual; improving.
- Ingenuous.
- Synonyms Inventive, bright, acute, constructive. See genius.
Wiktionary
- adj. Displaying genius or brilliance; tending to invent.
- adj. Characterized by genius; cleverly done or contrived.
- adj. Witty; original; shrewd; adroit; keen; sagacious.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Possessed of genius, or the faculty of invention; skillful or promp to invent; having an aptitude to contrive, or to form new combinations.
- adj. Proceeding from, pertaining to, or characterized by, genius or ingenuity; of curious design, structure, or mechanism
- adj. Witty; shrewd; adroit; keen; sagacious.
- adj. Mental; intellectual.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. showing inventiveness and skill
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old French ingenios, from Latin ingeniōsus, from ingenium, inborn talent; see genə- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“With these the English word ingenious has an obvious connection, especially in its earlier use as applied to men of letters.”
“It refers to an ingenious method of subterranean irrigation that exploits gravity to create arable land far beyond water sources, typically in desert environments.”
“But what makes the ad so ingenious is the fact that is a mix of message, brand and "location.”
“Also the connection between belief and tool-making, while ingenious, is also purely speculative.”
“I am just writing on how I think your plan on protecting marriage between a man and a woman in ingenious!”
“What you call an ingenious mathematical solution doesn't seem to be reflected in the patent," Voss told Samsung's lawyers.”
“The life writer abovementioned has preserved a fragment of Mr. Butler's, given by one whom he calls the ingenious Mr. Aubrey, who assured him he had it from the poet himself; it is indeed admirable, and the satire sufficiently pungent against the priests.”
The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland
“He began in 1630 with a prose tract, the Hero, laboured in short ingenious sentences, which went through six editions.”
“That's not to say that the film isn't also anchored by an elegant metaphor-I'll leave it to you to decide if it's "ingenious" - that makes its sexual excesses more than mere exhibition.”
“I’d also recommend “Problems for Self Study” and “The Man Who Became Himself” for playing with the format in ingenious ways.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ingenious’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
sammyg Very mature word Jan 31, 2012
cosmican Marked by independence and creativity in thought or action Nov 19, 2007