What does ingenious mean

Ingenious is most often used in the context of ideas, inventions, and solutions considered clever for their inventiveness and resourcefulness.

The related noun ingenuity refers to the quality of being ingenious —cleverness or inventiveness. Ingenuous , on the other hand, is most commonly used to describe people—typically people considered naive or overly trusting, especially due to a lack of real-world experience. Once upon a time, ingenious was used to mean ingenuous , but this is no longer the case.

To remember the difference, remember that ingenious sounds like genius and is used in similar contexts—an ingenious idea might also be described as a genius idea.

The middle of ingenuous sounds like the beginning of genuine , and an ingenuous person is usually a genuine one—nothing about them is insincere or intended to hide who they really are.

Example: The ingenuous inventor signed away the rights to his ingenious new creation without realizing it. Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between ingenious and ingenuous. It was ingenious of him to arrange the schedule so precisely.

Recent Examples on the Web That sounds corny, but the editing of these sequences is ingenious , as is the visualization of the mechanical happenings inside the safes.

First Known Use of ingenious 15th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3. History and Etymology for ingenious Middle English ingenyous , from Middle French ingenieus , from Latin ingeniosus , from ingenium natural capacity — more at engine entry 1. Learn More About ingenious. Time Traveler for ingenious The first known use of ingenious was in the 15th century See more words from the same century.

From the Editors at Merriam-Webster. Style: MLA. English Language Learners Definition of ingenious. Kids Definition of ingenious. Get Word of the Day daily email! Witty ; original ; shrewd ; adroit ; keen ; sagacious. He sent me an ingenious reply for an email. Having genius; having great mental ability. Displaying genius or brilliance ; tending to invent.

Made or done in a clever or original way. Marked by or exhibiting originality or inventiveness. Priya Indian. Neerja Indian. Zira US English. Oliver British. Wendy British. Fred US English. Tessa South African. How to say ingenious in sign language? Examples of ingenious in a Sentence Britney Schmidt : The reason we chose Europa Clipper is because the clipper ships were fast, American boats at the time that they were first used, when most shipping was achieved with large, slow vessels, we liked clipper for that reason, an ingenious way to solve the Europa mission problem : How do you get a long-lived mission at Europa with global coverage but not be in the radiation environment?

Prince CharlesPrince Charles : The only sad thing for me was not being able to go further into other parts of Nigeria, it is such a vast country and obviously there are so many other states and interesting areas. Barbara Klump : It was so exciting to observe such an ingenious and innovative way to access a food resource, we knew immediately that we had to systematically study this unique foraging behavior.

Ambrose Bierce : Barometer, n. Popularity rank by frequency of use ingenious Select another language:. Please enter your email address: Subscribe. Discuss these ingenious definitions with the community: 0 Comments. Notify me of new comments via email.