INGENIOUS • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Ingenious

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/ɪndʒˈinjəs/ Listen

adjective

Ingenious adj.

Possessed of genius, or the faculty of invention; skillful or promp to invent; having an aptitude to contrive, or to form new combinations; as, an ingenious author, mechanic. "A man... very wise and ingenious in feats of war." "Thou, king, send out For torturers ingenious." "The more ingenious men are, the more apt are they to trouble themselves."

Proceeding from, pertaining to, or characterized by, genius or ingenuity; of curious design, structure, or mechanism; as, an ingenious model, or machine; an ingenious scheme, contrivance, etc. "Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill."

Witty; shrewd; adroit; keen; sagacious; as, an ingenious reply.

Mental; intellectual. (Obs.) "A course of learning and ingenious studies."

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Etymology of 'Ingenious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ingenious" Quotes from Famous Books

... This ingenious suggestion had the effect of depriving the producer momentarily of speech, and while he was struggling for utterance, there dashed out from the wings a gorgeous being in blue velvet and a hat of such unimpeachable smartness that Sally ached at the sight of it with ...

— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... experienced the fate of Dr. Chalmer's two hundred churches. Hoffmann was a philosopher, however, and he continued to observe and collect as before; but he never found such another fossil; and at length, in the midst of his ingenious labors, the vital energies failed within him, and he broke down and died. The useless canon lived on. The French Revolution broke out; the republican army invested Maestricht; the batteries were opened; and shot and shell fell thick on the devoted city. ...

— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... historical reality, may lead and often has led to error. What poetical work of mythical times could stand this mode of trial? could there not be made, or rather has there not been made a work altogether allegorical, out of the Homeric poems? We have all heard of the ingenious idea of the anonymous writer, who in order to prove how easily we may pass beyond the truth in our wish to seek and find allegory everywhere, undertook with keen subtlety to prove that the great personality of Napoleon I. was ...

— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... boomerang; his sin had found him out. The experiment of Individualism—the keeping of the worker half in and half out of work—was far too ingenious not to contain a flaw. It was too delicate a balance to work entirely with the strength of the starved and the vigilance of the benighted. It was too desperate a course to rely wholly on desperation. And as time went on the terrible truth slowly declared itself; the degraded class was really ...

— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton

... the "Seven Caves." According to their historical picture-writings, they founded the Pueblo of Mexico in 1325. It is somewhat singular that no record of this event appears on the calendar stone. If the artist was ingenious enough, as Prof. Valentine thinks he was, to represent the dispersion of the Toltecs in the eleventh century, he surely would have found some way to refer to such an important event as the founding of their Pueblo. ...

— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

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