genius

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   someone who has exceptional intellectual ability and originality

   Mozart was a child genius

2. 2
   noun

   Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art, etc.

   She's a genius; she won a Nobel Prize at fifteen!

3. 3
   noun

   Extraordinary mental capacity.

   Excuse, therefore, the shortcomings of genius under the sudorific influence of the summer solstice; for be assured that the vertical sun, however it may dulcify and mature cherries, plums, and other fruitful ‘plumpitudes,’ is by no means favorable to the development of intellectual products.

4. 4
   noun

   Inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.

   a work of genius

5. 5
   noun

   The tutelary deity or spirit of a place or person.

   and the genius of the place: the growing enthusiasm for codified standards in the Army and Navy

6. 6
   adj

   Ingenious, brilliant, very clever, or original.

   What a genius idea!

7. 7
   noun

   unusual mental ability

8. 8
   noun

   a natural talent

Etymology

From Latin genius (“inborn nature; a tutelary deity of a person or place; wit, brilliance”), from gignō (“to beget, produce”), Old Latin genō, from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵenh₁-. Doublet of genio. See also genus and genie.