Definitions for intellectual
ˌɪn tlˈɛk tʃu əlin·tel·lec·tu·al

Princeton's WordNet(2.75 / 8 votes)Rate this definition:

1. intellectual, intellectadjective

   a person who uses the mind creatively

2. intellectual, rational, noeticadjective

   of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind

   "intellectual problems"; "the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man"

3. intellectualadjective

   appealing to or using the intellect

   "satire is an intellectual weapon"; "intellectual workers engaged in creative literary or artistic or scientific labor"; "has tremendous intellectual sympathy for oppressed people"; "coldly intellectual"; "sort of the intellectual type"; "intellectual literature"

4. cerebral, intellectualadjective

   involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct

   "a cerebral approach to the problem"; "cerebral drama"

GCIDE(4.19 / 11 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Intellectualnoun

   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.

Wiktionary(2.50 / 4 votes)Rate this definition:

1. intellectualnoun

   An intelligent person, someone interested in intellectual matters.

2. intellectualnoun

   The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.

3. intellectualadjective

   Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc.

4. intellectualadjective

   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.

5. intellectualadjective

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

6. intellectualadjective

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

Webster Dictionary(2.00 / 1 vote)Rate this definition:

1. Intellectualadjective

   belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc

   Etymology: [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]

2. Intellectualadjective

   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

   Etymology: [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]

3. Intellectualadjective

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

   Etymology: [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]

4. Intellectualadjective

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

   Etymology: [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]

5. Intellectualnoun

   the intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties

   Etymology: [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]

Freebase(3.00 / 3 votes)Rate this definition:

1. Intellectual

   An intellectual is a person who primarily uses intelligence in either a professional or an individual capacity. As a substantive or adjective, it refers to the work product of such persons, to the so-called "life of the mind" generally, or to an aspect of something where learning, erudition, and informed and critical thinking are the focus, as in "the intellectual level of the discourse on the matter was not high". The intellectual is a specific variety of the intelligent, which unlike the general property, is strictly associated with reason and thinking. Many everyday roles require the application of intelligence to skills that may have a psychomotor component, for example, in the fields of medicine, sport or the arts, but these do not necessarily involve the practitioner in the "world of ideas". The distinctive quality of the intellectual person is that the mental skills, which he or she demonstrates, are not simply intelligent, but even more, they focus on thinking about the abstract, philosophical and esoteric aspects of human inquiry and the value of their thinking. Traditionally, the scholarly and the intellectual classes were closely identified; however, while intellectuals need not necessarily be actively involved in scholarship, they often have an academic background and will typically have an association with a profession.

Editors Contribution(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate this definition:

1. intellectual

   A person who is smart and enjoys serious study and thought.

   That person is a real intellectual.

   Submitted by JP03 on February 5, 2015  

2. intellectual

   To use the mind and intelligence to create.

   The computer programmers are intellectual human beings.

   Submitted by MaryC on April 3, 2020  

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'intellectual' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #3726

2. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'intellectual' in Nouns Frequency: #2738

3. Adjectives Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'intellectual' in Adjectives Frequency: #500

How to pronounce intellectual?

1. Alex

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

How to say intellectual in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of intellectual in Chaldean Numerology is: 7

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of intellectual in Pythagorean Numerology is: 8

Examples of intellectual in a Sentence

1. Dustin Plunkett:

   When I was a kid, I was moving pretty much home to home, family member to family member, and nobody in my family knew how to support me because of my cleft palate and my intellectual disability.

2. Anna Garlin Spencer:

   The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement in a manner that would be amusingly absurd were it not so monstrously unjust and socially harmful.

3. Mark Twain, What Is Man? (1906):

   The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

4. William Ellery Channing:

   Great minds are to make others great. Their superiority is to be used, not to break the multitude to intellectual vassalage, not to establish over them a spiritual tyranny, but to rouse them from lethargy, and to aidthem to judge for themselves.

5. John Adams:

   Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil.

Images & Illustrations of intellectual

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