INGENUITY

Pronunciation (US): (GB):

I. (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The property of being ingenious

Example:

the cleverness of its design

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("ingenuity" is a kind of...):

high quality; superiority (the quality of being superior)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The power of creative imagination

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity; inventiveness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("ingenuity" is a kind of...):

creative thinking; creativeness; creativity (the ability to create)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ingenuity"):

imagination; resource; resourcefulness (the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems)

Derivation:

ingenious (showing inventiveness and skill)

Credits

Context examples:

Early that morning a peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes’ ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clue as to their whereabouts.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I recovered I managed, by a device which had perhaps some little merit of ingenuity, to get old Cunningham to write the word ‘twelve,’ so that I might compare it with the ‘twelve’ upon the paper.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Another big fact is the remarkable experience of our client, Scott Eccles. Now, my dear Watson, is it beyond the limits of human ingenuity to furnish an explanation which would cover both of these big facts?

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

New moons set up a trend, so if you did discover a situation or relationship that required your attention or ingenuity to improve, it could take as long as six months to fix—until the full moon in Libra culminates the matter, and that’s due April 7, 2020.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

But the case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been one intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I have no eye or ingenuity for such matters, but as they are before me; and had I a place of my own in the country, I should be most thankful to any Mr. Repton who would undertake it, and give me as much beauty as he could for my money; and I should never look at it till it was complete.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Ham was a boat-builder in these days, having improved a natural ingenuity in that handicraft, until he had become a skilled workman.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I shall, however, preserve my former rule, and give the preference to those cases which derive their interest not so much from the brutality of the crime as from the ingenuity and dramatic quality of the solution.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Professor Challenger has devised means for getting us on to this plateau when it appeared to be inaccessible; I think that we should now call upon him to use the same ingenuity in getting us back to the world from which we came.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed to, without being able to make their opinions the same.