INTELLECTUAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Intellectual

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/ˌɪntəlˈɛktʃuəl/ /ˌɪnəlˈɛktʃuəl/ Listen

adjective

Intellectual adj.

1.

Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc. "Logic is to teach us the right use of our reason or intellectual powers."

2.

Endowed with intellect; having the power of understanding; having capacity for the higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or mental capacity; as, an intellectual person. "Who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity?"

3.

Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as, intellectual employments.

4.

Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind; as, intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy.

noun

Intellectual n.

1.

The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties. "Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh, Whose higher intellectual more I shun." "I kept her intellectuals in a state of exercise."

2.

A learned person or one of high intelligence; especially, One who places greatest value on activities requiring exercise of the intelligence, such as study, complex forms of knowledge, literature and aesthetic matters, reflection and philosophical speculation; a member of the intelligentsia; as, intellectuals are often apalled at the inanities that pass for entertainment on television.

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Etymology of 'Intellectual'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Intellectual" Quotes from Famous Books

... request of Schikaneder, a Viennese manager, who had written the text from a fairy tale, the fantastic elements of which are peculiarly German in their humor. Mozart put great earnestness into the work, and made it the first German opera of commanding merit, which embodied the essential intellectual sentiment and kindly warmth of popular German life. The manager paid the composer but a trifle for a work whose transcendent success enabled him to build a new opera-house and laid the foundation of a large fortune. We are told, too, that at the time of Mozart's death in ...

— The Great German Composers • George T. Ferris

... see why you lay so much stress on Puritanism," he said. "What has Puritanism resulted in? Its whole struggle has come to an end in doubt and agnosticism and flippancy. Intellectual curiosity has taken the place of spiritual stress; ethical casuistry or theological amusements seem to me to stand ...

— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... thus sacred, even from the intrusion of intellectual inspiration, although richly ornamented, was of no remarkable extent. At other times the eye might have wandered with delight on the exquisite plants and flowers, scattered profusely over a noble terrace, to which a second door in the apartment conducted; but, at the present moment, the employment ...

— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... probable, rather is impossible from the standpoint of evolution. We must say that these peculiarities of human family life are to be explained through the fact that man has passed through many more stages of evolution, particularly of intellectual evolution, than any of the animals below him. If we examine these peculiarities of man's family life carefully, we will see that they all can be explained through natural selection and man's higher intellectual development. That man has no ...

— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... even think of revenge till she was quite sure that revenge would be necessary. But she did think of it, and could not keep her thoughts from it for a moment. Could it be possible that she, with all her intellectual gifts as well as those of her outward person, should be thrown over by a man whom well as she loved him,—and she did love him with all her heart,—she regarded as greatly inferior to herself! He had promised to marry her; and he ...

— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

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