talent
Pluraltalents
- 1A marked natural ability or skill in a particular area.
Her talent for languages let her learn Italian in just a few months.
The young pianist showed remarkable talent during the audition.
UsageUsually a talent for something (a talent for languages); for ability in general, show talent or have talent.
Similargift, skill, ability, aptitude, flair
Note
Ability counts two ways in English. A person can have a talent, countable and often specific (a marvelous talent, in Hemingway's 1936 letter to Maxwell Perkins), or simply show talent, uncountable and general. Endowment is a near synonym and stresses that the ability is given rather than earned.
- 2Skilled or gifted people considered collectively, or a single talented person.
The agency scouts emerging talent at college games.
Studios compete to sign the hottest talent before their rivals do.
UsageOften in talent scout and talent pool. In show business, the talent means the performers, not the people who hire them.
Note
In business, sport and entertainment, ability becomes a resource that is scouted, signed and managed. Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times in 2025, quotes a "top talent wrangler" and sets the actors against the studio suits.
- 3A unit of weight and money used in ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the Middle East, roughly 26 to 60 kilograms depending on time and place.
The temple treasury held several talents of gold.
He owed the merchant a talent of silver by spring.
UsageMeasured with of: a talent of silver, five talents of gold.
Note
The sense closest to the word's origin: Greek tálanton meant a balance, then a weight, then a sum of money, and reached English through Latin talentum. The King James Bible of 1611 hands servants five, two and one talents, each according to his ability, and the sense of natural gift is already within earshot.
Less common meanings
- 4The people in a particular place or area, especially women, viewed as a group and sized up for their looks.
He spent the evening eyeing the talent at the bar.
The new club is known for its lively crowd and plenty of talent.
UsageUsually the talent or the local talent, as in check out the talent. It rates people by looks, so it easily offends.
Note
Slang that turns a crowd into something to be looked over. It behaves as a mass noun, as in not much talent in this bar or check the talent on the beach, a phrase Nic Venter uses in Wow! What a Life! (2011).
- 5A desire or inclination toward a particular thing.
Note
A trap for readers of older prose. Here a talent for something meant wanting it rather than being good at it. Writers no longer use the word this way. When it turns up in an old text, context decides whether a character has a liking or a gift, as in the familiar sense of ability.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of talent apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
The root is Ancient Greek τάλαντον (tálanton, "balance, a particular weight, sum of money"), which Latin borrowed as talentum ("a Grecian weight; a talent of money"); the word then passed into Old English and on into Middle English. Old French talent ("will, inclination, desire") added a sense of desire, now obsolete, while the sense of "ability" grew from the biblical Parable of the Talents.