appealing to or engaging the intellect: intellectual pursuits.
2.
of or pertaining to the intellect or its use: intellectual powers.
3.
possessing or showing intellect or mental capacity, esp. to a high degree: an intellectual person.
4.
guided or developed by or relying on the intellect rather than upon emotions or feelings; rational.
5.
characterized by or suggesting a predominance of intellect: an intellectual way of speaking.
–noun
6.
a person of superior intellect.
7.
a person who places a high value on or pursues things of interest to the intellect or the more complex forms and fields of knowledge, as aesthetic or philosophical matters, esp. on an abstract and general level.
8.
an extremely rational person; a person who relies on intellect rather than on emotions or feelings.
9.
a person professionally engaged in mental labor, as a writer or teacher.
10.
intellectuals, Archaic.
a.
the mental faculties.
b.
things pertaining to the intellect.
[Origin: 1350–1400; ME < L intelléctuālis, equiv. to intelléctu-, s. of intelléctusintellect+ -ālis-al1]
of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind; "intellectual problems"; "the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man"
2.
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" [ant: nonintellectual]
3.
involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct; "a cerebral approach to the problem"; "cerebral drama" [syn: cerebral] [ant: emotional]
In`tel*lec"tu*al\ (?; 135), a. [L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.]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. --I. Watts. 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? --Milton. 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.
In`tel*lec"tu*al\, n. The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties. Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh, Whose higher intellectual more I shun. --Milton. I kept her intellectuals in a state of exercise. --De Quincey.
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