Borrowed from Middle French ingénieux, from Old French engenious, from Latin ingeniōsus, from ingenium, from in- + gignere, itc-ola genere.

• IPA: /ɪnˈd͡ʒiːnjəs/, /ɪnˈd͡ʒiːniəs/

ingenious

1. (of a person) Displaying genius or brilliance; inventive.

   Synonyms: Thesaurus:intelligent

   This fellow is ingenious; he fixed a problem I didn’t even know I had.

2. (of a thing) Characterized by genius; cleverly contrived or done.

   Synonyms: artful

   That is an ingenious model of the atom.

   • 1928, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen”, in The Tower, page 32 ↗:

     Many ingenious lovely things are gone / That seemed sheer miracle to the multitude, / protected from the circle of the moon / That pitches common things about.

3. Showing originality or sagacity; witty.

   Synonyms: adroit, keen, sagacious, shrewd, Thesaurus:witty

   He sent me an ingenious reply to an email.

   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC ↗, page 147 ↗:

     I have scarcely recovered the surprise of the ingenious question, before I meet another surprise in the still more ingenious answer

• engine
• engineer
• genius
• ingeniosity
• ingeniousness

• French: ingénieux
• German: ingeniös, genial, einfallsreich, originell, findig
• Italian: ingegnoso
• Portuguese: engenhoso
• Russian: изобрета́тельный
• Spanish: ingenioso

• French: ingénieux
• German: clever, geschickt gemacht, einfallsreich, findig
• Portuguese: engenhoso
• Russian: хитроу́мный
• Spanish: ingenioso

• German: findig, geistreich, einfallsreich, geistsprühend, geistvoll, ideenreich, originell
• Russian: остроумный
• Spanish: ingenioso