genius means ingenious, brilliant, very clever, or original. It carries an Arena rating of 1780, earned across 8 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, genius ranks #59 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #2,878 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #3,347 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #3,712 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
genius is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒiː.ni.əs/.
Why “genius” is a great word
The innate brilliance of intellect or creativity that fundamentally transforms a field, or the person who embodies it. From Latin genius, meaning 'inborn nature; a tutelary deity; wit, brilliance,' from the verb gignō ('to beget, produce'), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵenh₁- ('to produce, beget'). Unlike 'talent,' which implies a polished skill, or 'aptitude,' which suggests a ready capacity, genius is the generative, self-originating lightning strike that changes the landscape. It is the equation scribbled in a margin that rewrites physics, the melody that haunts a century, the scent of scorched paper at 3 a.m. from a mind so intensely alight that its silences hum with invention—the ancient guardian spirit secularized into the lonely, burning proof that a single mind can beget a world.
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.
adj
- Ingenious, brilliant, very clever, or original.e.g.“What a genius idea!”
noun
- Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art, etc.e.g.“She's a genius; she won a Nobel Prize at fifteen!”
- Extraordinary mental capacity.
- Inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.e.g.“a work of genius”
- The tutelary deity or spirit of a place or person.e.g.“and the genius of the place: the growing enthusiasm for codified standards in the Army and Navy”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).