Noun

genius (plural: genii (classical Roman mythology) or geniuses (colloquial))

1. Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill.
2. Extraordinary mental capacity.
3. inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.

   A work of genius

4. (Roman mythology) The guardian spirit of a place or person.
5. A way of thinking, optimizing one's capacity for learning and understanding.

Synonyms

• See also Wikisaurus:genius

Antonyms

• idiot

Related terms

• engine
• engineer
• genie
• ingenious
• ingeniosity

A genius (plural genii or geniuses, adjective ingenious) is a person, a body of work, or a singular achievement of surpassing excellence. More than just originality, creativity, or intelligence, genius is associated with achievement of insight which has transformational power. A work of genius fundamentally alters the expectations of its audience. Genius may be generalized, or be particular to a discrete field such as sports, statesmanship, science, or art.

Although difficult to quantify, genius refers to a level of aptitude, capability or achievement which exceeds even that of most other exceptional contemporaries in the same field. The normal distribution suggests that the term might be applied to phenomena ranked in the top 0.1%, i.e. three standard deviations or greater, among peers. In psychology, the inventor of the first IQ tests, Alfred Binet, applied the term to the top 0.1% of those tested. This usage of the term is closely related to the general concept of intelligence.

The term may be also applied to someone who is considered gifted in many subjects or in one subject.

A genius is an individual who successfully applies a previously unknown technique in the production of a work of art, science or calculation, or who masters and personalizes a known technique. A genius typically possesses great intelligence or remarkable abilities in a specific subject, or shows an exceptional natural capacity of intellect and/or ability, especially in the production of creative and original work, something that has never been seen or evaluated previously.

Contents

• 1 Sourced
• 2 Unsourced
• 3 See also
• 4 External links

Sourced

Alphabetized by author

• Genius is patience.
  • Anonymous proverb, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

• A genius is one who can do anything except make a living.
  • Joey Adams, as quoted in The Mammoth Book of Humor (2000) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 355

• There is this difference between genius and common sense in a fox: Common sense is governed by circumstances, but circumstances is governed by genius.
  • Josh Billings in Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh : Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything (1953) edited by Donald Day, p. 120

• Genius is the faculty of doing a thing that nobody supposed could be done at all.
  • Josh Billings in Uncle Sam's Uncle Josh : Or, Josh Billings on Practically Everything (1953) edited by Donald Day, p. 182

From Wikiquote under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Fri May 22 04:54:28 2009