Meaning & use
ingenuity
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Meaning
noununcountable
The quality of being clever, original, and inventive in solving problems or making something.
Grammar: Usually uncountable; can be used with 'a great deal of' or 'much'.
Patterns
- with ingenuity
- show ingenuity
- the ingenuity of someone
Her ingenuity solved the puzzle in minutes.
The design shows great ingenuity.
He used his ingenuity to fix the engine with limited tools.
Common combinations
- human ingenuity
- Human ingenuity has overcome many challenges.
- technical ingenuity
- The device is a marvel of technical ingenuity.
- show ingenuity
- The team showed ingenuity in their approach.
- a stroke of ingenuity
- The solution was a stroke of ingenuity.
Synonyms and how they differ
- creativity
- Emphasizes imaginative thinking; 'ingenuity' often implies practical, clever problem-solving.
- inventiveness
- Close, but 'ingenuity' can also suggest resourcefulness under constraints.
- cleverness
- More general and can be used for quick-wittedness; 'ingenuity' is about original solutions.
Opposites
Word family
- ingenious adjective
- Clever, original, and inventive.
- ingeniously adverb
- In a clever and original way.
Commonly confused: ingenuity or ingenuous?
ingenuity vs ingenuous
Means innocent and unsuspecting, not clever; 'ingenuity' is about cleverness.
Practice
The engineer's ______ saved the project when all seemed lost.
Choose one answer.
We need a noun after 'The engineer's'; 'ingenuity' is the noun. 'Ingenious' is an adjective, 'ingeniously' an adverb, and 'ingenuous' means innocent, which does not fit.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ingenuity”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.