INGENUITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ingenuity mean? 

• INGENUITY (noun)
  The noun INGENUITY has 2 senses:

1. the power of creative imagination

2. the property of being ingenious

  Familiarity information: INGENUITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INGENUITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The power of creative imagination

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity; inventiveness

Hypernyms ("ingenuity" is a kind of...):

creative thinking; creativeness; creativity (the ability to create)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ingenuity"):

imagination; resource; resourcefulness (the ability to deal resourcefully with unusual problems)

Derivation:

ingenious (showing inventiveness and skill)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The property of being ingenious

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

cleverness; ingeniousness; ingenuity

Context example:

the cleverness of its design

Hypernyms ("ingenuity" is a kind of...):

high quality; superiority (the quality of being superior)

 Context examples 

Mrs. Weston's poultry-house was robbed one night of all her turkeys—evidently by the ingenuity of man.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

At other times he repeated my favourite poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great ingenuity.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Beppo did not despair, and he conducted his search with considerable ingenuity and perseverance.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was an universal favourite, and his ingenuity in little things was transcendent.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Still they moved on—something better was yet in view; and by a continued exertion of strength and ingenuity they found themselves at last in the passage behind the highest bench.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

His lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He was possessed with a mania for patronizing Yankee ingenuity, and seeing his friends fitly furnished forth.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Their tendency is gross and illiberal; and if their construction could ever be deemed clever, time has long ago destroyed all its ingenuity.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

No human ingenuity could suggest a means of bridging the chasm which yawned between ourselves and our past lives.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

By which the reader may conceive an idea of the ingenuity of that people, as well as the prudent and exact economy of so great a prince.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)