Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Ingenuity
1.
The quality or power of ready invention; quickness or acuteness in forming new combinations; ingeniousness; skill in devising or combining.
All the means which human
ingenuity
has contrived. Blair.
2.
Curiousness, or cleverness in design or contrivance;
as, the
. ingenuity
of a plan, or of mechanismHe gives . . .
To artist
To artist
ingenuity
and skill. Cowper.
3.
Openness of heart; ingenuousness.
[Obs.]
Syn. – Inventiveness; ingeniousness; skill; cunning; cleverness; genius.
–
Ingenuity
, Cleverness
. Ingenuity is a form of genius, and cleverness of talent. The former implies invention, the letter a peculiar dexterity and readiness of execution. Sir James Mackintosh
remarks that the English overdo in the use of the word clever and cleverness, applying them loosely to almost every form of intellectual ability. Webster 1828 Edition
Ingenuity
INGENU'ITY
,Noun.
1.
Curiousness in design, the effect of ingenuity; as the ingenuity of a plan or of mechanism.2.
Openness of heart; fairness; candor. [This sense of the word was formerly common, and is found in good authors down to the age of Locke, and even later; but it is now wholly obsolete. In lieu of it, ingenousness is used.]Definition 2024
ingenuity
ingenuity
English
Noun
ingenuity (usually uncountable, plural ingenuities)
- The ability to solve difficult problems, often in original, clever, and inventive ways.
- The pyramids demonstrate the ingenuity of the ancient Egyptians.
- Poverty is the mother of ingenuity.
- Ingenuity is one of the characteristics of a beaver.
- (now rare) Ingenuousness; honesty, straightforwardness.
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.17:
- And therefore I apply my selfe to ingenuitie, and ever to speake truth and what I think […].
- 1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essayes, London: Edward Blount, OCLC 946730821, II.17:
Translations
ability to come up with solutions to difficult problems
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