intellectual

Alternative forms

• intellectuall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French intellectuel, from Latin intellectualis

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌɪntəˈlɛk(t)ʃʊəl/

• Audio (US)

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Adjective

intellectual (comparative more intellectual, superlative most intellectual)

1. Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive.

   intellectual powers, activities, etc.

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

   an intellectual person

3. Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect

   intellectual employments

4. Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind.

   intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy

5. (archaic, poetic) Spiritual.
   • 1805, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book II, lines 331-334 (eds. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, & Stephen Gill, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1979):

     I deem not profitless those fleeting moods / Of shadowy exultation; not for this, / That they are kindred to our purer mind / And intellectual life […]

Noun

intellectual (plural intellectuals)

1. An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.
2. (archaic) The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, 1650, Book I, Chapter 1, p. 2,

     […] although their intellectuals had not failed in the theory of truth, yet did the inservient and brutall faculties control the suggestion of reason […]

Further reading

• "intellectual" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 169.