intellectual
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See also: intel·lectual
English
Alternative forms
- intellectuall (obsolete)
Etymology
From Old French intellectuel, from Latin intellectualis.
Pronunciation
Adjective
intellectual (comparative more intellectual, superlative most intellectual)
- Pertaining to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive.
- intellectual powers, activities, etc.
- 1920, Harold Monro, Preface to s:The year's at the spring; an anthology of recent poetry
- Pleasure is various, but it cannot exist where the emotions or the imagination have not been powerfully stirred. Whether it be called sensual or intellectual, pleasure cannot be willed
- Endowed with intellect; having a keen sense of understanding; having the capacity for higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or cleverness
- an intellectual person
- 1894, Edgar Wilson Nye, “Chapter 30”, in Nye's History of the USA:
- The Fenimore Cooper Indian is no doubt a brave and highly intellectual person, educated abroad, refined and cultivated by foreign travel, graceful in the grub dance or scalp walk-around, yet tender-hearted as a girl, walking by night fifty-seven miles in a single evening to warn his white friends of danger.
- Suitable for exercising one's intellect; perceived by the intellect
- intellectual employments
- 1916, Joseph McCabe, “Chapter IX”, in The Tyranny of Shams:
- A good deal of nonsense is written about sport and entertainment. Many of us can, with pleasant ease, suspend a severely intellectual task for a few hours to witness a first-class football match.
- Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind.
- intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy
- (archaic, poetic) Spiritual.
- 1805, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book II, lines 331-334 (eds. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, & Stephen Gill, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1979):
- I deem not profitless those fleeting moods / Of shadowy exultation; not for this, / That they are kindred to our purer mind / And intellectual life
- 1805, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book II, lines 331-334 (eds. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, & Stephen Gill, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1979):
Antonyms
Derived terms
Terms derived from intellectual (adjective)
- antiintellectual
- anti-intellectual
- hyperintellectual
- intellectual capital
- intellectual dark web
- intellectual disability
- intellectual freedom
- intellectual honesty
- intellectualisation
- intellectualish
- intellectualism
- intellectualist
- intellectualistic
- intellectuality
- intellectualization
- intellectual journey
- intellectually
- intellectualness
- intellectualoid
- intellectual property
- intellectual prostitute
- intellectual rights
- neurointellectual
- organic intellectual
- overintellectual
- preintellectual
- pseudo-intellectual
- pseudointellectual
- subintellectual
- superintellectual
- ultraintellectual
- unintellectual
Related terms
Terms etymologically related to intellectual
Translations
belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive
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endowed with intellect
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suitable for exercising the intellect
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spiritual — see spiritual
Noun
intellectual (plural intellectuals)
- An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.
- 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn:
- It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense "Left". Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order.
- 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, London: Heinemann, →OCLC, pages 20–21:
- ‘You know I hate intellectuals.’
‘You mean you hate people who are cleverer than you are.’
‘Yes. I suppose that's why I like you so much, Tom.’
- (archaic) The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.
- 1646, Thomas Browne, chapter 1, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: , London: T H for Edward Dod, , →OCLC, 1st book, page 2:
- […] although their intellectuals had not failed in the theory of truth, yet did the inservient and brutall faculties control the suggestion of reason […]
Derived terms
Translations
intelligent person, interested in intellectual matters
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See also
References
- “intellectual”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- "intellectual" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 169.