talent [OE] This came ultimately from Greek talanton, and referred originally to a unit of weight used by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Romans, and Greeks. The use of talent to mean ‘natural aptitude or skill’ [ME] comes from the biblical parable of the talents in the Gospel of Matthew. In this story a master gives one, two, and ten talents of silver to each of three servants. Two of them use their talents well and double the value of what they have been given, but the third buries his coin and fails to benefit from it. Talent scouts and talent shows have searched for new talent since the 1930s. Another kind of talent is the local talent, or the good-looking people of an area—an expression used since the 1940s, and probably originating among British servicemen.