ingenious
/ɪnˈdʒiːnɪəs
/- We are ingenious and we make great things, be it art, music or inventions.
- It was an unfortunate combination of poor building design and a couple of bright minds ingenious enough to take advantage of it.
- What you have to believe is that humans are a very inventive and ingenious species.
Synonyms
- An English geologist has come up with one of the most ingenious ideas yet suggested.
- Using the concept of tax relief as the means of reparation is also an ingenious idea.
- The company has a reputation for inventive adaptations, ingenious design and musical innovation.
Derivatives
ingeniousness
/ noun ...- In fact, all you need is a reasonable grasp of physics and electrical engineering to appreciate the ingeniousness of microwave weapons.
- The ingeniousness of tatami is realised as a square is removed to reveal the pit, which naturally is black lacquer with seasonal embossed images.
- Justin soon realized the ingeniousness of this.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French ingénieux or Latin ingeniosus, from ingenium 'mind, intellect'; compare with engine.
engine from Middle English:
Engine is from Old French engin, from Latin ingenium ‘talent, device’, the source also of ingenious (Late Middle English). Like many English words that now start with en-, it could also be spelled in-. Its original senses were ‘ingenuity, cunning’, and ‘natural talent, wit, genius’, which survives in Scots as ingine. From there it became ‘the product of ingenuity, a plot, or snare’, and also ‘a tool or weapon’, specifically a large mechanical weapon, such as a battering ram or heavy catapult, constructed by engineers (Middle English). By the first half of the 17th century something like our idea of an engine had arisen, a fairly complex device with moving parts that worked together.