Ingenuity

How to spell ingenuity

9 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce ingenuity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ingenuity mean?

1. nounThe quality of being clever, original, and resourceful in solving problems or inventing things.

Ingenuity in a sentence

• The engineers showed remarkable ingenuity in repairing the bridge with limited materials.

• Her ingenuity turned a cramped studio flat into a comfortable home office.

Where does ingenuity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin ingenuitas, which originally meant 'the condition of being freeborn' and, by extension, the frankness and honesty expected of a freeborn citizen. That noun was built on ingenuus, meaning 'native' or 'freeborn', from the root gignere, 'to beget or bring forth'. When English adopted ingenuity in the sixteenth century, it first carried this older sense of straightforwardness or noble character, much like the related adjective 'ingenuous'. Over time, however, the word drifted under the strong pull of the look-alike 'ingenious' (from a different Latin word, ingenium, meaning 'natural talent or cleverness'), and by the seventeenth century ingenuity had come to mean inventive skill. That tangled history is the real spelling trap: the word looks as if it should belong to 'ingenious', yet it keeps the -nuity ending of the older, frankness-related family.

How the word is built

• in- (in, within)
• gen (born, produced)
• -uity (noun-forming suffix)