Talent

Talent, like giftedness, is a term that lacks common understanding and agreed-upon meaning. Talent's original meaning was that of a weight, especially of gold or silver. Talent's original meaning is ancient and describes a unit of mass, value, weights, or money. The word derives from the Latin talentum, which in turn comes from the Greek τάλαντον, meaning scale or measuring balance. Usually talent was used to describe a talent's worth of gold or silver, which was about that of an average person's weight in one of these precious metals. This term for large quantities of monetary riches became associated with human performance later in history.

In common usage, talent and giftedness mean essentially the same thing. The national definition is an example of this commingling of ...