Ingenuity is cleverness at inventing and solving. Great ingenuity, human ingenuity, require some ingenuity.
It is praise for making do as much as for inventing, and it is the word for the kind of cleverness that finds a way round a shortage. It is not the same word as ingenuousness, which means being open and unguarded, though they look alike.
1nouningenuityCleverness at inventing and solving.
“With a little ingenuity, she turned an old ladder into a bookshelf.”
ingenuity is a cleverness.
Latin ingenuitas first meant the quality of being freeborn; the sense shifted towards inborn cleverness.
Latin
ingenuitās
English, today
ingenuity
From Latin ingenuitās. Compare genius.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA