genius

1 a very smart person <the 16-year-old college graduate was considered to be a genius> Synonyms brain, brainiac, intellect, thinker, whiz, wiz, wizard Related Words polyhistor, polymath, Renaissance man; blue, bluestocking, highbrow, intellectual; sage, savant; egghead, geek, longhair, nerd; master, virtuoso; ace, crackerjack (also crackajack), natural Near Antonyms ignoramus, illiterate, know-nothing, lowbrow; anti-intellectual, philistine; ass, donkey, fool, jackass; beast, boor, cad, churl, clown, creep, cretin, cur, heel, jerk, louse, lout, skunk, snake, stinker Antonyms blockhead, dodo, dolt, dope, dumbbell, dummy, dunce, fathead, goon, half-wit, hammerhead, idiot, imbecile, knucklehead, moron, nitwit, numskull (or numbskull), pinhead

2 a special and usually inborn ability <had a genius for remembering long strings of numbers> <had a genius for saying the wrong thing, no matter what the social situation> Synonyms aptitude, bent, endowment, faculty, flair, talent, gift, head, knackRelated Words affinity, bias, disposition, habitude, impulse, inclination, leaning, partiality, penchant, predilection, predisposition, proclivity, propensity, tendency, turn; ear, eye, mind, nose; feel, hang, instinct, touch, way; capability, competence, facility, proficiency, skill; capacity, potential, power; forte, specialism, speciality, specialtyNear Antonyms disability, handicap, inability, incapacity; shortcoming, weakness

3 a habitual attraction to some activity or thing <a genius for gambling over his head> Synonyms affection, affinity, aptitude, bent, bias, bone, devices, disposition, inclination, habitude, impulse, leaning, partiality, penchant, predilection, predisposition, proclivity, propensity, tendency, turnRelated Words favor, one-sidedness, partisanship, prejudice; endowment, faculty, flair, inclination, gift, knack, talent; addiction, appetite, fancy, fondness, like, liking, preference, taste; forte, speciality, specialty; convention, custom, habit, pattern, practice (also practise), routine, trick, way, wont; eccentricity, idiosyncrasy, kink, oddity, peculiarity, quirk, singularityNear Antonyms allergy, averseness, aversion, disfavor, disinclination, dislike, disliking, disrelish, distaste; detachment, impartiality, neutrality, objectivity; apathy, disinterestedness, indifference, insouciance, nonchalance, unconcern

4 the set of qualities that makes a person, a group of people, or a thing different from others <putting the needs of the individual before those of society is alien to the genius of the Japanese people> Synonyms character, clay, colors, complexion, constitution, nature, personality, self, toneRelated Words distinctiveness, distinctness, individuality, singularity, uniqueness; attribute, characteristic, earmark, essentiality, feature, flavor, hallmark, mark, point, property, savor (also savour), stamp, trait; disposition, grain, sort, temper, temperament; composition, makeup; essence, essentiality, interior, interiority, soul, spirit; metal, stuff, substance; habit, way

5 a visible representation of something abstract (as a quality) <the giant tortoise would seem to be the very genius of the unfathomable ancientness that one associates with the Galápagos Islands> Synonyms abstract, avatar, embodier, epitome, externalization, embodiment, icon (also ikon), image, incarnation, incorporation, instantiation, manifestation, objectification, personification, personifierRelated Words actualization, concretization, exemplification, personalization, realization, substantiation; essence, quintessence, soul; archetype, exemplar, model, paradigm, pattern; reincarnation