INTELLECTUAL • FREE-TRANSLATOR.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

... But the influence which constantly proceeds from these cities—on their journalism, not only, or on the issues of their book-presses, or on the multitudes going forth from them, but on the example presented by them of intellectual, social, religious life—this, for shadow and check, or for fine inspiration, is already of unlimited extent, of incalculable force. It must increase as they expand, and are lifted before the country to ...

— Opening Ceremonies of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, May 24, 1883 • William C. Kingsley

... in common with either spiritualists, soul-believers, on the one hand, or materialists on the other. So far as the mortality of the soul is concerned, he may be either a spiritualist or a materialist But spiritualism or materialism is to him only an intellectual pastime. It is not his trade. In his actual work he seeks only practical results, and so confines himself wholly to the actual ...

— Psychology and Achievement • Warren Hilton

... conceive. She had to give it up. They recalled to her mind a little group of people in Helium who had forsworn the pleasures of life in the pursuit of knowledge. They were rather patronizing in their relations with those whom they thought not so intellectual. They considered themselves quite superior. She smiled at recollection of a remark her father had once made concerning them, to the effect that if one of them ever dropped his egotism and broke it it would take a week to fumigate Helium. ...

— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... consideration influencing her resolutions, threats or fear least of all; when once she longs for peace, she insists on its not being from apprehension of the enemy, but only from abhorrence of bloodshed. The action of life does not develop merely the intellectual powers: between success and failure, in conflict and effort and victory, the character moulds itself and acquires its ruling tone. Her immense good fortune fills her with unceasing self-confidence, which is at the same time ...

— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... Cooley, in his way," remarked her companion graciously. "Not especially intellectual or that, you know. His father was a manufacturer chap, I believe, or something of the sort. I suppose you saw a ...

— His Own People • Booth Tarkington

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