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Genius vs Genial - What's the difference?

genius | genial |

As adjectives the difference between genius and genial

is that genius is ingenious, very clever, or original while genial is friendly and cheerful.

As a noun genius

is someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art etc.

genius

English

(wikipedia genius)

Adjective

(-)
  • (informal) ingenious, very clever, or original.
  • What a genius idea!

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • (eulogistic) Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art etc.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=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.}}
  • Extraordinary mental capacity.
  • Inspiration, a mental leap, an extraordinary creative process.
  • (Roman mythology) The guardian spirit of a place or person.
  • A way of thinking, optimizing one's capacity for learning and understanding.
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * idiot

    genial

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • friendly and cheerful
  • (especially of weather) pleasantly mild and warm
  • {{quote-Fanny Hill, part=3 , The well breath'd youth, hot-mettled, and flush with genial juices, was now fairly in for making me know my driver. }}
  • marked by genius
  • * 2003 , Laura Fermi, Gilberto Bernardini, Galileo and the Scientific Revolution , Courier Dover Publications, page 111 [http://books.google.com/books?id=qGsZ4YmjhFwC&pg=PA111&dq=genial+idea+date:1940-2009&lr=lang_en&as_brr=3&as_pt=ALLTYPES]:
  • About fifty years later, in 1675, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer (1644-1710) had the genial idea of using astronomical rather than terrestrial distances.
  • (anatomy) genian; relating to the chin
  • Derived terms

    * congenial

    Anagrams

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