genius

noun

1. (countable)Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art, etc.

   “She's a genius; she won a Nobel Prize at fifteen!”

   “Marx stand höher, sah weiter, überblickte mehr und rascher als wir andern alle. Marx war ein Genie, wir andern höchstens Talente.”

2. (uncountable)Extraordinary mental capacity.

   “Excuse, therefore, the shortcomings of genius under the sudorific influence of the summer solstice; for be assured that the vertical sun, however it may dulcify and mature cherries, plums, and other fruitful ‘plumpitudes,’ is by no means favorable to the development of intellectual products.”

   “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.”

3. (uncountable)Inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.

   “a work of genius”

   “to add a dash of cinnamon amid such umami was pure genius”

4. (Roman, also, countable, figuratively)The tutelary deity or spirit of a place or person.

   “and the genius of the place: the growing enthusiasm for codified standards in the Army and Navy”

   “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.”

   “An old sinner, in shape of a khansamah, is the genius of the place, and has rarely aught else to tempt the tired traveller with than a “sudden death”—a fowl caught running in the yard, and dished up forthwith; […]”

adj

1. (informal)Ingenious, brilliant, very clever, or original.

   “What a genius idea!”

   “Bjarte Birkeland asserts that the reason why Nynorsk writers of fiction have succeeded in coming so close to naked life is not that they are more genius than authors writing in Bokmal, but that they are using their mother tongue”

   “We all know how genius “Kamp Krusty,” “A Streetcar Named Marge,” “Homer The Heretic,” “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie” and “Mr. Plow” are, but even the relatively unheralded episodes offer wall-to-wall laughs and some of the smartest, darkest, and weirdest gags ever Trojan-horsed into a network cartoon with a massive family audience.”

   “But Vahul was more genius than Rishi.”

   “She said the writing for these products “is very genius” because it's carefully done.”