1
as in inventive
having the skill and imagination to create new things
an ingenious but rather eccentric inventor
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in clever
showing a noteworthy use of the imagination and creativity especially in inventing
a chair that can't tip over is quite ingenious
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of ingenious
Install Coyote Rollers These ingenious devices are long, spinning bars mounted to the fence top.
—
Lucy Notarantonio, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 June 2025
The approach was ingenious: extract fragments of DNA circulating in the bloodstream—the same shards first glimpsed by Mandel and Métais nearly seven decades earlier—and sequence them to identify abnormalities in the regulation of gene expression that are indicative of cancer.
—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New Yorker, 16 June 2025
That idea that being ingenious isn’t a necessary requirement gives tremendous hope to a lot of those AI developers who are desirous of being the one solo coder to discover or invent AGI.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 11 June 2025
Still, Strindberg’s three-part structure, with its bear-trap teeth, is too ingenious to mess with.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 19 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for ingenious
Lucy Notarantonio, MSNBC Newsweek, 21 June 2025
The approach was ingenious: extract fragments of DNA circulating in the bloodstream—the same shards first glimpsed by Mandel and Métais nearly seven decades earlier—and sequence them to identify abnormalities in the regulation of gene expression that are indicative of cancer.
—Siddhartha Mukherjee, New Yorker, 16 June 2025
That idea that being ingenious isn’t a necessary requirement gives tremendous hope to a lot of those AI developers who are desirous of being the one solo coder to discover or invent AGI.
—Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 11 June 2025
Still, Strindberg’s three-part structure, with its bear-trap teeth, is too ingenious to mess with.
—Jesse Green, New York Times, 19 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for ingenious
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ingenious
Adjective
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Readers raved about the inventive New Mexican cuisine and the destination’s natural beauty—sitting at 7,000 feet, Santa Fe is at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range and enjoys over 300 days of sunshine per year.—
Elizabeth Cantrell,
Travel + Leisure,
8 July 2025
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Whatever happens thereafter in David and Leslie Newman’s inventive and energetic script is inevitably some thing of a letdown although — not much.—
Arthur Knight,
HollywoodReporter,
7 July 2025
Adjective
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Light, clever, and just leftfield enough to feel like a proper find.—
Lela London,
Forbes.com,
2 July 2025
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Dubno’s novel sounds equally thoughtful and nasty, clever and juicy and full of great drama.—
Literary Hub
July 1,
Literary Hub,
1 July 2025
Adjective
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Sample the fruits of a burgeoning wine scene in the Finger Lakes A new crop of innovative winemakers is raising the bar in the Finger Lakes wine region, where unique grape varieties and low-intervention practices are increasingly replacing the sweeter wines long associated with the area.—
AFAR Media,
AFAR Media,
14 July 2025
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Involve your team in brainstorming sessions to find innovative ways to achieve goals with limited resources.—
Shavonnah Schreiber,
Forbes.com,
14 July 2025
Adjective
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An imaginative builder can put the stones together in all sorts of combinations.—
Jennie Rothenberg Gritz,
Smithsonian Magazine,
1 July 2025
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Verne’s imaginative fiction has inspired more and less faithful screen adaptations since the days of silent movies.—
Robert Lloyd,
Los Angeles Times,
29 June 2025
Adjective
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With so many people looking for work, there‘s intense competition for those jobs, and the ways to apply can be creative and involved.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
12 July 2025
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Another creative idea many commenters proposed was using the stained glass fixture as a fruit bowl.—
Sophia Beams,
Better Homes & Gardens,
12 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Ingenious.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ingenious. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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