Meaning & use
human ingenuity
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Meanings
noununcountable
The natural ability of people to think of clever new ideas and ways of solving problems.
Grammar: Uncountable, so it takes a singular verb and no article: 'Human ingenuity knows no limits.'
Patterns
- human ingenuity in something
- human ingenuity at work
- thanks to human ingenuity
- a test of human ingenuity
Human ingenuity has turned a dry desert into farmland.
The rescue was a fine example of human ingenuity under pressure.
She believes human ingenuity will find a way to clean up the oceans.
noununcountable
Clever, original solutions produced by people, considered as a group or a force.
Grammar: Often used with 'the' when pointing to a particular display of cleverness: 'the ingenuity of the design'.
Patterns
- the ingenuity of someone
- show ingenuity
- rely on human ingenuity
The bridge is a monument to human ingenuity.
We should not underestimate the ingenuity of ordinary people.
Their campaign relied on human ingenuity rather than money.
Common combinations
- human ingenuity at work
- The new vaccine is human ingenuity at work.
- a feat of human ingenuity
- Landing on the moon was a feat of human ingenuity.
- rely on human ingenuity
- We cannot simply rely on human ingenuity to fix the climate.
- human ingenuity and creativity
- The school prizes human ingenuity and creativity above memorization.
- a tribute to human ingenuity
- The tunnel is a tribute to human ingenuity.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cleverness
- Cleverness is the general quality of being smart, while human ingenuity stresses inventing new solutions to hard problems.
- inventiveness
- Inventiveness fits best when the focus is on creating new devices or methods, not just clever thinking.
- resourcefulness
- Resourcefulness means making good use of whatever is available, which is narrower than human ingenuity's broad creative power.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: human ingenuity or ingenuous? human ingenuity or genius?
human ingenuity vs ingenuous
Ingenuous means innocent and trusting, almost the opposite of clever; it sounds similar to 'ingenious' but has a very different meaning.
human ingenuity vs genius
Genius is an unusually great natural ability or a person who has it, while ingenuity is the everyday cleverness of finding solutions.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'human ingenuity' correctly.
Choose one answer.
'Human ingenuity' is uncountable, so it takes a singular verb and no plural form. Option 3 uses 'has produced' correctly, while options 1 and 2 use plural verbs and option 4 wrongly makes it countable.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “human ingenuity”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.