Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

ingenious

/ɪnˈd͡ʒiːnjəs/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.35 in modern English

Syllables: in-ge-nious
IPA: /ɪnˈd͡ʒiːnjəs/

10

Scrabble Score

9

Letters

3

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

adj

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

adj

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

adj

Showing originality or sagacity; characterized by ingenuity; witty.

Example Sentences

"This fellow is ingenious; he fixed a problem I didn’t even know I had."
"That is an ingenious model of the atom."
"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."
"He sent me an ingenious reply to an email."
"I have scarcely recovered the surprise of the ingenious question, before I meet another surprise in the still more ingenious answer"

Etymology

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.

Origin

Source language: Middle French

Word Breakdown

Root: *ǵenh₁-, ingénieux, engenious, ingeniōsus, genere

Inflected Forms

more ingenious (comparative) most ingenious (superlative) engenious (alternative, obsolete)

Derived Forms

hyperingenious ingeniously overingenious superingenious ultraingenious uningenious

Frequently Paired Words

engine engineer genius ingeniosity ingeniousness

Synonyms

astute brainy bright brilliant clever educated genius gifted hivey ingenious intellectual intelligent

Rhymes With

genius heterogeneous splenius

Questions

How do you pronounce ingenious?: The recorded pronunciation is /ɪnˈd͡ʒiːnjəs/.
What does ingenious mean?: Of a person, displaying genius, ingenuity or brilliance; inventive.
Where does ingenious come from?: It is traced to Middle French.

How to pronounce ingenious

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