“Genius: A word with a long and complicated history, as this
information from the OED shows. In Latin, the word usually meant “The
tutelary god or attendant spirit allotted to every person at his
birth, to govern his fortunes and determine his character, and finally
to conduct him out of the world”; in later Latin, it often meant “A
demon or spiritual being in general.” A common English sense beginning
in the seventeenth century was “With reference to a nation, age, etc.:
Prevalent feeling, opinion, sentiment, or taste; distinctive
character, or spirit.” Another seventeenth-century development was
“Natural ability or capacity; quality of mind; the special endowments
which fit a man for his peculiar work” (first attested in Milton’s
Eikonoklastes, 1649).”
