INTELLECTUAL • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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

... really risen from the vulgar herd, so seeing that Ch'iu-fang possessed several traits of beauty and exceptional intellectual talents, Fu Shih arrived at the resolution of making his sister the means of joining relationship with the influential family of some honourable clan. And so unwilling was he to promise her lightly to any suitor that things were delayed up to this time. Therefore ...

— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... still kneeling exactly in the spot of the church where it had commenced. She describes herself during that time as absolutely lost in those unfathomable splendours; capable only of passively receiving the impression of the purely intellectual vision unfolded to her with indescribable clearness and singleness of view. Writing of this great favour towards the end of life, she says that it was then as vividly present to her in all its circumstances ...

— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... confined here is the wife, or rather the widow, of a governor of Mexico, who made away with her husband. We did not see her, and they say she generally keeps out of the way when strangers come. One very pretty and coquettish little woman, with a most intellectual face, and very superior-looking, being in fact a relation of Count ——-'s, is in jail on suspicion of having poisoned her lover. A beautiful young creature, extremely like Mrs. ——-, of Boston, was among the prisoners. I did not hear what her crime was. We were ...

— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca

... Mademoiselle never answers me in that tone. It is only with the very tip of her tongue that she will even taste any intellectual food which I set before her. Usually she will not touch it at all. But Monsieur Gelis seems to be in her opinion the supreme authority upon all subjects. It was always, "Oh, yes!"—"Oh, of course!"—to ...

— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France

... {68} whose Death (one of this Year's Doing) is much regretted by many. I scarcely knew him except at Cambridge forty years ago: and could never relish his Writings, amiable and sensible as they are. I suppose they will help to swell that substratum of Intellectual Peat (Carlyle somewhere calls it) {69} from [which] one or two living Trees stand out in a Century. So Shakespeare above all that Old Drama which he grew amidst, and which (all represented by him alone) might henceforth be ...

— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

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