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How to spell ingenious

Ingenious is spelled I-N-G-E-N-I-O-U-S.

hear itin·gen·ious/ɪn'dʒinjəs/adjectiveSchwa and roots

What it means: Showing inventiveness and skill; clever.

In a sentence: The ingenious mouse cleverly found a way to get the cheese.

The part people get wrong

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Same family: ingenuity, genius, creative, inventive, clever. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Ingenious comes from the Latin word 'ingeniosus', meaning 'clever' or 'full of natural talent', which itself is based on 'ingenium', a word for inborn character or ability. It is closely related in origin to the word 'genius', which today we use for people with very exceptional minds.

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