Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Ingenuity

In′ge·nu′i·ty, n. [L. ingenuitas ingenuousness: cf. F. ingénuité. See Ingenuous.] 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 mechanism.

He gives . . . To artist ingenuity and skill. Cowper.

3. Openness of heart; ingenuousness. [Obs.]

The stings and remorses of natural ingenuity, a principle that men scarcely ever shake off, as long as they carry anything of human nature about them. South.

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’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.