SuaviloquyToday’s word

talented

Talented, a.

Furnished with talents; possessing skill or talent; mentally gifted. Abp. Abbot (1663).

Note: This word has been strongly objected to by Coleridge and some other critics, but, as it would seem, upon not very good grounds, as the use of talent or talents to signify mental ability, although at first merely metaphorical, is now fully established, and talented, as a formative, is just as analogical and legitimate as gifted, bigoted, moneyed, landed, lilied, honeyed, and numerous other adjectives having a participal form, but derived directly from nouns and not from verbs.

Shades of meaning

Fernald has no entry of its own for talented; he lists it under clever.

Where he writes about it:

The discriminating use of such words as able, gifted, talented, etc., is greatly preferable to an excessive use of the word clever. — from clever