A person of brilliant intellect who plans complex schemes, or the person in charge of organizing something clever or criminal.
Compound word from 'master' (an expert or leader) and 'mind' (intellect). First used in the early 1700s to describe someone whose brilliant thinking controlled events, and popularized by stories of criminal geniuses.
The word 'mastermind' is almost always used for really smart criminals in movies, but it originally just meant 'the smartest person running things'—it got the villainous reputation from detective stories! Sherlock Holmes was described as fighting 'masterminds,' making the word sound thrillingly evil.
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