ingenious

What it means

1. Of a person, displaying genius, ingenuity or brilliance; inventive.

   This fellow is ingenious; he fixed a problem I didn’t even know I had.

   Synonyms: astute, brainy, bright, brilliant, clever, educated, genius, gifted

2. Of a thing, characterized by genius; cleverly contrived or done.

   That is an ingenious model of the atom.

   1 more example

   Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, / protected from the circle of the moon / That pitches common things about.

   1928, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”, in The Tower, page 32

   Synonyms: artful

3. Showing originality or sagacity; characterized by ingenuity; witty.

   He sent me an ingenious reply to an email.

   1 more example

   I have scarcely recovered the surprise of the ingenious question, before I meet another surprise in the still more ingenious answer

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 147

   Synonyms: adroit, keen, sagacious, shrewd, witty, amusing, bright, diverting

In a sentence

This fellow is ingenious; he fixed a problem I didn’t even know I had.

Where it comes from

1. Old Latingenere
2. Latiningeniōsus“endowed with good natural capacity, gifted with genius”
3. Old Frenchengenious
4. Middle Frenchingénieux
5. Englishingenious

Borrowed from Middle French ingénieux, from Old French engenious, from Latin ingeniōsus (“endowed with good natural capacity, gifted with genius”), from ingenium (“innate or natural quality, natural capacity, genius”), from in- (“in”) + gignere (“to produce”), Old Latin genere. See also engine.