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Webster 1913 Edition

Ingenuity

Inˊge-nu′i-ty

,
Noun.
[L.
ingenuitas
ingenuousness: cf. F.
ingénuité
. See
Ingenuous
.]
1.
The quality or power of ready invention; quickness or acuteness in forming new combinations; ingeniousness; skill in devising or combining.
All the means which human
ingenuity
has contrived.
Blair.
2.
Curiousness, or cleverness in design or contrivance;
as, the
ingenuity
of a plan, or of mechanism
.
He gives . . .
To artist
ingenuity
and skill.
Cowper.
3.
Openness of heart; ingenuousness.
[Obs.]
Syn. – Inventiveness; ingeniousness; skill; cunning; cleverness; genius.
–
Ingenuity
,
Cleverness
. Ingenuity is a form of genius, and cleverness of talent. The former implies invention, the letter a peculiar dexterity and readiness of execution.
Sir James Mackintosh
remarks that the English overdo in the use of the word clever and cleverness, applying them loosely to almost every form of intellectual ability.

Webster 1828 Edition

Ingenuity

INGENU'ITY

,
Noun.
The quality or power of ready invention; quickness or acuteness in combining ideas, or in forming new combinations; ingeniousness; skill; used of persons. How many machines for saving labor has the ingenuity of men devised and constructed.
1.
Curiousness in design, the effect of ingenuity; as the ingenuity of a plan or of mechanism.
2.
Openness of heart; fairness; candor. [This sense of the word was formerly common, and is found in good authors down to the age of Locke, and even later; but it is now wholly obsolete. In lieu of it, ingenousness is used.]

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