Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Ingenuity

Ingenuity , noun

[Latin ingenuitas ingenuousness: compare French ingénuité. See Ingenuous.]

1.
The quality or power of ready invention; quickness or acuteness in forming new combinations; ingeniousness; skill in devising or combining.
All the means which human ingenuity has contrived. — Blair
2.
Curiousness, or cleverness in design or contrivance; as, the ingenuity of a plan, or of mechanism.
He gives... To artist ingenuity and skill. — Cowper
3.
Openness of heart; ingenuousness. [Obsolete]
The stings and remorses of natural ingenuity, a principle that men scarcely ever shake off, as long as they carry anything of human nature about them. — South