Ingenious
/ɪnˈdʒiːniəs/adjective
Very clever and inventive.
She came up with an ingenious solution to the problem.
Often appears as...
- ingenious solution
- ingenious idea
adjective
Showing creativity or originality, especially in inventing or problem solving.
His ingenious use of data helped to solve the crime.
Often appears as...
- ingenious use
- ingenious method
Usage tips
Academic
adjective
Very clever and inventive.
She came up with an ingenious solution to the problem.
Often appears as...
- ingenious solution
- ingenious idea
adjective
Showing creativity or originality, especially in inventing or problem solving.
His ingenious use of data helped to solve the crime.
Often appears as...
- ingenious use
- ingenious method
Usage tips
Academic
Definition 1 of 2
Pro Tip 1/3Positive Connotation
The word 'ingenious' often implies admiration for someone's cleverness, typically in a positive sense.
Her ingenious way of organizing the event won everyone's praise.
Pro Tip 2/3Problem Solving
Use 'ingenious' to describe a clever and practical way of solving a difficult problem.
He devised an ingenious method to conserve water in arid regions.
Pro Tip 3/3Unusual Creativity
'Ingenious' usually refers to a surprising or unexpected form of creativity or originality.
The designer's ingenious dress featured pockets that could transform into a handbag.
Compare with
brilliantclevercreativeimaginativeinnovativeinventiveoriginalresourcefulsmart
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Video examples
The 4 stories we tell...
Now these studies are ingenious, but they're simple. They work like this. You take two groups of people who are similar in all relevant respects, and you remind one group that they're going to die but not the other, then you compare their behavior. So you're observing how it biases behavior
Video examples
Why does the universe...
can fluctuate into existence, and then, by the miracle of inflation, blow up into this huge and variegated cosmos we see around us. Okay, this is a really ingenious scenario. It's very speculative. It's fascinating. But I've got a big problem with it, and the problem is
Video examples
How language shapes the...
that have personal weight to us -- ideas like blame and punishment or eyewitness memory. These are important things in our daily lives. Now, the beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is.
Video examples
Where do new words come...
it might seem we already have plenty. Yet, as our world changes, new ideas and inventions spring forth, and science progresses, our existing words leave gaps in what we want to express and we fill those gaps in several ingenious, practical,
Video examples
Focusing on blind spots...
started to work on the phonograph it was an ingenious device it basically took in sound waves through a kind of a membrane covered with parchment and that would vibrate modeled after the anatomy of the human ear and would convert those
Video examples
How to spot a liar PIPE...
partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class Ponzi schemers, a deception epidemic -- in short, what one author calls a post-truth society. It's been very confusing for a long time now.
Video examples
The Unsinkable Lizard PIPE...
some of the smallest residents are the most ingenious the tiny pygmy gecko is a master of the jungle so my newt it could sit on a fingertip he is dwarfed by life in the undergrowth
Video examples
A healthy economy should...
And if the mere idea of boundaries makes you feel, well, bounded, think again. Because the world's most ingenious people turn boundaries into the source of their creativity.
Video examples
Skyscraper History PIPE...
incredible stories behind these structures and the inventions of seven ingenious leads forward that have enabled spaceman to have fun big to bigger into the world's biggest
Video examples
Incredible Orca Hunt PIPE...
Only about a hundred killer whales in the world hunt using this technique. It's an ingenious solution
Video examples
The 4 stories we tell...
Now these studies are ingenious, but they're simple. They work like this. You take two groups of people who are similar in all relevant respects, and you remind one group that they're going to die but not the other, then you compare their behavior. So you're observing how it biases behavior
Video examples
Why does the universe...
can fluctuate into existence, and then, by the miracle of inflation, blow up into this huge and variegated cosmos we see around us. Okay, this is a really ingenious scenario. It's very speculative. It's fascinating. But I've got a big problem with it, and the problem is
Video examples
How language shapes the...
that have personal weight to us -- ideas like blame and punishment or eyewitness memory. These are important things in our daily lives. Now, the beauty of linguistic diversity is that it reveals to us just how ingenious and how flexible the human mind is.
Video examples
Where do new words come...
it might seem we already have plenty. Yet, as our world changes, new ideas and inventions spring forth, and science progresses, our existing words leave gaps in what we want to express and we fill those gaps in several ingenious, practical,
Video examples
Focusing on blind spots...
started to work on the phonograph it was an ingenious device it basically took in sound waves through a kind of a membrane covered with parchment and that would vibrate modeled after the anatomy of the human ear and would convert those
Video examples
How to spot a liar PIPE...
partisan media, ingenious identity thieves, world-class Ponzi schemers, a deception epidemic -- in short, what one author calls a post-truth society. It's been very confusing for a long time now.
Video examples
The Unsinkable Lizard PIPE...
some of the smallest residents are the most ingenious the tiny pygmy gecko is a master of the jungle so my newt it could sit on a fingertip he is dwarfed by life in the undergrowth
Video examples
A healthy economy should...
And if the mere idea of boundaries makes you feel, well, bounded, think again. Because the world's most ingenious people turn boundaries into the source of their creativity.
Video examples
Skyscraper History PIPE...
incredible stories behind these structures and the inventions of seven ingenious leads forward that have enabled spaceman to have fun big to bigger into the world's biggest
Video examples
Incredible Orca Hunt PIPE...
Only about a hundred killer whales in the world hunt using this technique. It's an ingenious solution
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Helen Fisher
American Scientist
Today, most women are surrounded by ingenious gadgets. They don't grow the peas or raise the chicken that they serve for dinner; instead they hunt and gather in the grocery store. They go through catalogs or department stores to buy clothes instead of shearing sheep, carding wool, and weaving cloth for skirts and coats and blankets.
Quote examples
Sendhil Mullainathan
American Economist
We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more.
Quote examples
Richard Owen
English Scientist
Mr. Darwin contributes some striking and ingenious instances of the way in which the principle partially affects the chain, or rather network of life, even to the total obliteration of certain meshes.
Quote examples
Jean-Luc Godard
French Director
A film ingeniously directed does indeed give the impression of having been laid end to end, but a film ingeniously edited gives the impression of having suppressed all direction.
Quote examples
Joseph Lancaster
English Educator
We daily witness the beneficial effect produced to the community by the institution of premiums, held out to encourage the inventions of ingenious mechanics.
Quote examples
James Joyce
Irish Novelist
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
Quote examples
Isaac D'Israeli
British Writer
Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.
Quote examples
Ambrose Bierce
American Journalist
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Quote examples
Victor Hugo
French Author
Love is jealous, and ingenious in self-torture in proportion as it is pure and intense.
Quote examples
James Dyson
British Designer
Companies are not ingenious, it's the people in them that are.
Quote examples
Helen Fisher
American Scientist
Today, most women are surrounded by ingenious gadgets. They don't grow the peas or raise the chicken that they serve for dinner; instead they hunt and gather in the grocery store. They go through catalogs or department stores to buy clothes instead of shearing sheep, carding wool, and weaving cloth for skirts and coats and blankets.
Quote examples
Sendhil Mullainathan
American Economist
We should try to ensure that everyone has a fair opportunity to find a great life. It's a quest that will require political will and ingenious policies. President Obama's proposed expansion of the earned-income tax credit goes in this direction, but we need more.
Quote examples
Richard Owen
English Scientist
Mr. Darwin contributes some striking and ingenious instances of the way in which the principle partially affects the chain, or rather network of life, even to the total obliteration of certain meshes.
Quote examples
Jean-Luc Godard
French Director
A film ingeniously directed does indeed give the impression of having been laid end to end, but a film ingeniously edited gives the impression of having suppressed all direction.
Quote examples
Joseph Lancaster
English Educator
We daily witness the beneficial effect produced to the community by the institution of premiums, held out to encourage the inventions of ingenious mechanics.
Quote examples
James Joyce
Irish Novelist
Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives. The English reading public explains the reason why.
Quote examples
Isaac D'Israeli
British Writer
Literature is an avenue to glory, ever open for those ingenious men who are deprived of honours or of wealth.
Quote examples
Ambrose Bierce
American Journalist
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
Quote examples
Victor Hugo
French Author
Love is jealous, and ingenious in self-torture in proportion as it is pure and intense.
Quote examples
James Dyson
British Designer
Companies are not ingenious, it's the people in them that are.
Example 1 of 10
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