talent
/ˈtalənt
/- A talent for design and beauty makes visual art or architecture a good choice of profession.
- By dint of hard work and determination Piper used his natural artistic talent and practical skills to great effect.
- Madison is a refreshing mature artist with natural talent and strong views about all aspects of her music and career.
Synonyms
- He had come all the way from a small village to watch the best of talent gathered from all over the country.
- On the field he reads the game very well and possesses immense talent.
- The news is sure to please the Gigg Lane faithful, who relish watching home-grown talent.
- So set my ransom as you wish, tribune -- calculated in talents not sesterces.
- Each amount mentioned is a combination of an amount in gold - a fraction of a gram in each case and an amount in talents.
Origin
Old English talente, talentan (as a unit of weight), from Latin talenta, plural of talentum 'weight, sum of money', from Greek talanton. sense 1 is a figurative use with biblical allusion to the parable of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30).
This came ultimately from Greek talanton, and referred originally to a unit of weight used by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, and Greeks. The use of talent to mean ‘natural aptitude or skill’ comes from the biblical parable of the talents in the Gospel of Matthew. In this story a master gives one, two, and ten talents of silver to each of three servants. Two of them use their talents well and double the value of what they have been given, but the third buries his coin and fails to benefit from it. Talent scouts and talent shows have searched for new talent since the 1930s. Another kind of talent is the local talent, or the good-looking people of an area—an expression used since the 1940s, and probably originating among British servicemen.