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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



20 words match “INGENUITY”

INGENUITY n. 3 definitions
ew combinations; ingeniousness; skill in devising or combining. All the means which human ingenuity has contrived. Blair.
DISINGENUITY n.
Disingenuousness. [Obs.] Clarendon.
BEYOND prep.
y country. Sir P. Sidney. Beyond sea. (Law) See under Sea. -- To go beyond, to exceed in ingenuity, in research, or in anything else; hence, in a bed sense, to deceive or circumvent. That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter. 1 Thess. iv. 6.
BOUTS-RIMES n.
Words that rhyme, proposed as the ends of verses, to be filled out by the ingenuity of the person to whom they are offered.
CONTRIVE v.
To form by an exercise of ingenuity; to devise; to invent; to design; to plan. What more likely to contrive this admirable frame of the universe than infinite wisdom. Tillotson. neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life. Hawthorne.
CUNNING a.
Wrought with, or exibiting, skill or ingenuity; ingenious; curious; as, cunning work. Over them Arachne high did lift Her cunning web. Spenser.
CURIOUSNESS n.
The state of being curious; exactness of workmanship; ingenuity of contrivance.
EVADE p.
To get away from by artifice; to avoid by dexterity, subterfuge, address, or ingenuity; to elude; to escape from cleverly; as, to evade a blow, a pursuer, a punishment; to evade the force of an argument. The heathen had a method, more truly their own, of evading the Christian miracles. Trench.
EXPISCATE v.
stigation; to search out. "To expiscate principles." [R.] Nichol. Dr.Burton has with much ingenuity endeavord to expiscate the truth which may be involved in them. W. L. Alexander.
EXTORT v.
by physical force, menace, duress, torture, or any undue or illegal exercise of power or ingenuity; to wrench away (from); to tear away; to wring (from); to exact; as, to extort contributions from the vanquished; to extort confessions of guilt; to extort a promise; to extort payment of a debt.
INGENIOSITY n.
Ingenuity; skill; cunning. [Obs.] Cudworth.
INGENIOUS a.
Proseeding from, pertaining to, or characterized by, genius or ingenuity; of curious design, structure, or mechanism; as, an ingenious model, or machine; an ingenious scheme, contrivance, etc. Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill. Cowper.
INGENIOUSLY adv.
In an ingenious manner; with ingenuity; skillfully; wittily; cleverly. "Too ingeniously politic." Sir W. Temple.
INGENIOUSNESS n.
The quality or state of being ingenious; ingenuity.
INGENUOUSNESS n.
Ingenuity. [Obs.] Fuller.
INGENY n.
Natural gift or talent; ability; wit; ingenuity. [Obs.] [Written also ingenie.] Becon.
INVENTION n.
The faculty of inventing; imaginative faculty; skill or ingenuity in contriving anything new; as, a man of invention. They lay no less than a want of invention to his charge; a capital crime, . . . for a poet is a maker. Dryden.
PUZZLE n. 2 definitions
hing which perplexes or embarrasses; especially, a toy or a problem contrived for testing ingenuity; also, something exhibiting marvelous skill in making.
QUAINT a.
Characterized by ingenuity or art; finely fashioned; skillfully wrought; elegant; graceful; nice; neat. [Archaic] " The queynte ring." " His queynte spear." Chaucer. " A shepherd young quaint." Chapman. Every look was coy and wondrous quaint. Spenser. To show bow quaint an orator you are. Shak.
WEB n.
with hardly a . . . thread of rose-color or gold. Hawthorne. Such has been the perplexing ingenuity of commentators that it is difficult to extricate the truth from the web of conjectures. W. Irving.