Genius
nounOutstanding natural intellectual or creative power, or a person who possesses it.
How to spell genius
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce genius
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does genius mean?
- nounOutstanding natural intellectual or creative power, or a person who possesses it.
Genius in a sentence
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The young pianist was widely regarded as a musical genius.
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It took real genius to solve a problem the whole team had abandoned.
Where does genius come from?
Language of origin: Latin
The word comes directly from the Latin genius, which named the guardian spirit that the Romans believed accompanied a person from birth and shaped their character and fortunes. That noun grew from the root gignere, meaning 'to beget' or 'to bring into being', so a person's genius was literally the spirit attending their creation. The same root also produced English words such as 'generate' and 'genus', all carrying the idea of birth or origin. English borrowed genius in the 1500s, at first keeping the sense of an attendant spirit, before the meaning shifted to a person's natural disposition and then, by the 1600s and 1700s, to exceptional inborn intellectual or creative power. The spelling keeps the original Latin -ius ending, which is why the final syllable sounds like 'yus' rather than the more familiar -ous.
How the word is built
- gen- (from Latin gignere: to beget, produce)
- -ius (Latin noun ending)
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