Insightful means showing deep understanding. Seeing the thing under the thing, and saying it clearly.
It is a compliment for comments, questions and books rather than for people directly, though an insightful writer is a fair description. The noun behind it is insight, and having an insight is the moment of seeing, while being insightful is the habit. The word has been overused in business writing, where insights now sometimes means nothing more than data, so it works best when the understanding is genuinely not obvious.
1adjectiveinsightfulShowing a deep and accurate understanding.
“She asked one genuinely insightful question.”
synonyms: perceptive, astute
Proto-Germanic
*insahtiz — account, narrative, argument
Old English
insiht — narrative, argument, account
Middle English
insight
English
insight
English, today
insightful
Built from
A recent formation from insight + ful. insight comes from Middle English insight, insiht (“insight, mental vision, intelligence, understanding”), equivalent to in- + sight. Perhaps continuing Old English insiht (“narrative, argument, account”), from Proto-Germanic insahtiz (“account, narrative, argument”). Compare West Frisian ynsjoch (“insight”), Dutch inzicht (“insight, awareness, view, opinion”), German Low German Insicht (“insight”), German Einsicht (“insight, knowledge, perception, understanding”), Danish indsigt (“insight”), Swedish insikt (“insight”), Icelandic innsýn (“insight”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA