genius

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-. See also genus.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒin.jəs/, /ˈdʒi.ni.əs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdʒiː.nɪəs/

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• Rhymes: -iːniəs

genius (plural geniuses or genii)

1. (eulogistic) Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art etc.
   • 1898, Winston Churchill, chapter 1, in The Celebrity:

     In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned.

2. Extraordinary mental capacity.
3. Inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.

   a work of genius.

4. (Roman mythology) The tutelary deity or spirit of a place or person.
   • Milton

     the unseen genius of the wood

   • Tylor

     We talk of genius still, but with thought how changed! The genius of Augustus was a tutelary demon, to be sworn by and to receive offerings on an altar as a deity.

• (intelligent person): See Thesaurus:genius
• (tutelary deity or spirit): See tutelary deity and Thesaurus:spirit

• idiot

genius (not comparable)

1. (informal) ingenious, very clever, or original.

   What a genius idea!

• genius in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• genius in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• "genius" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 143.

• Seguin

From Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget”).

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈɡe.ni.us/, [ˈɡɛ.ni.ʊs]

genius m (genitive geniī); second declension

1. the deity or guardian spirit of a person, place, etc.
2. (with respect to the enjoyment of life) the spirit of social enjoyment, fondness for good living, taste, appetite, inclinations
3. (of the intellect) wit, talents, genius (rare)

Second declension.

¹Found in older Latin (until the Augustan Age).

• Catullus[,] Tibullus and Pervigilium Veneris, 1921, page 328f. containing Albius Tibullus III, XI, 9f. = IV, V, 9f. with a translation into English by J. P. Postgate:

  magne Geni, cape tura libens votisque faveto,
  si modo, cum de me cogitat, ille calet.

  Great Genius, take this incense with a will, and smile upon my prayer, if only when he thinks on me his pulse beats high.

• genius in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• genius in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• genius in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• genius in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• genius in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• genius in William Smith, editor (1848) A Dictionary of Greek Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
• genius in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin