intellectualadj.n.
/ˌɪntᵻˈlɛktʃʊəl/, /ˌɪntᵻˈlɛktʃ(ᵿ)l/, /ˌɪntᵻˈlɛktjʊəl/, /ˌɪntᵻˈlɛktjᵿl/, U.S. /ˌɪn(t)əˈlɛk(t)ʃ(əw)əl/ A. adj.† 1. Apprehended or apprehensible only by the intellect or mind (as opposed to by the senses), non-material, spiritual. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > intelligibility > [adjective] > by intellect alone
intellectuala1398
intelligiblea1398
intellectible1557
intellective1644
epistemonicala1688
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. ii. ii. 59 An aungel is substancia intellectual, alwey meuable, fre and bodiles, seruinge God by grace and not bi kynde.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. i. xvi. 51 God is..welle of goodnes and of riȝtwisnesse, intellectual liȝt, and vertue þat comeþ of non oþir.
1493 Chastysing Goddes Chyldern (de Worde) xviii. sig. Div/2 An Intellectuel vision, whanne noo body, ne ymage, nor fygure is seen. But whan..the Insighte of the sowle, by a wonderfull myghte of god..is cleerly fastnyd in vnbodely substaunce.
1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. a*viv Of the intellectuall vision, saynt Thomas gyueth example of the holy wryters of the scripture.
1605 F. Bacon Of Aduancem. Learning i. sig. H1 To descend from spirits and intellectuall formes to sensible and materiall fourmes. View more context for this quotation
1704 J. Norris Ess. Ideal World II. iv. 271 By intellectual objects I mean those objects which the mind perceives, without having any such impressions made upon the body.
1715 A. Pope Temple of Fame 8 A Train of Phantoms in wild Order rose, And, join'd, this Intellectual Scene compose.
2.
a. Of or belonging to the intellect or understanding. In quot. 1531 = intellective adj. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > intellect > [adjective]
intellectualc1454
intellectivea1475
skilful1532
dianoetical1570
intelligential1611
noetical1644
noetic1653
dianoetic1677
intellectile1677
spiritual1701
mental1840
noematic1860
c1454 R. Pecock Folewer to Donet 61 (MED) Aristotil..in his vje book of ‘etikis’ nombriþ wijsdom for oon of þe intellectual or knowal vertues.
1531 T. Elyot Bk. named Gouernour iii. xxiii. sig. gvi The thirde parte of the soule is named the parte intellectuall or of vnderstandynge.
1624 T. Gataker Discuss. Transubstant. 97 By contemplation with intellectual eyes.
1654 R. Whitlock Ζωοτομία 214 Easy Credulity, which is the third cause of Intellectuall slavery.
1726 E. Fenton in A. Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey V. xx. 414 Pallas clouds with intellectual gloom The Suitors souls, insensate of their doom!
1799 H. Jones Belmont Lodge II. 68 Every external sense, and intellectual idea are engrossed by rapacious love.
a1832 F. D. Maurice Moral & Metaphysical Philos. in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) II. 652/1 That sense of intellectual lordship whereby a man is able to feel that he has that in him of which nature may present many likenesses, but to which it can offer no parallel.
1850 F. W. Robertson Serm. 3rd Ser. iv. 43 An intellectual conception of the Almighty.
1878 J. Morley Carlyle 171 All unveracity, torpid or fervid, breeds intellectual dimness.
1932 H. J. Massingham Great Victorians 242 Macaulay would have rated an open mind as equivalent to moral and intellectual flabbiness.
1981 Times 14 Oct. 14/1 The victims unable to see their immediate and less calamitous loss of home and orchard in his intellectual perspective.
2000 F. Hoveyda Hidden Meaning Mass Comm. 5 As a rule, most writers regard films as a school for intellectual laziness.
b. Modifying a noun denoting a person, a class, a social milieu, a condition, etc.: that is such in relation to the intellect. Frequently in figurative contexts.
ΚΠ
1641 J. Milton Areopagitica 9 No envious Juno sate cross-leg'd over the nativity of any mans intellectual off spring.
a1680 S. Butler Genuine Remains (1759) I. 226 Multitudes of Reverend Men and Critics Have got a kind of intellectual Rickets.
1731 S. Chandler tr. P. van Limborch Hist. Inquisition II. 28 He who is a concealed Heretick in this sense is generally called an Heretick purely intellectual.
1797 W. Godwin Enquirer i. v. 33 I find myself a sort of intellectual camelion.
a1824 Ld. Byron Don Juan Ded. in Wks. (1833) XV. 105 The intellectual eunuch Castlereagh.
1847 W. J. Cory Extracts Lett. & Jrnls. (1897) 46 He and I went through several hard subjects in the old Cambridge way, in that method of minute comparison of opinions, without argument which I believe to be peculiar to the small intellectual aristocracy of Cambridge.
1897 W. James Will to Believe 9 Mr. Balfour gives the name of ‘authority’ to all those influences, born of the intellectual climate, that make hypotheses possible or impossible for us.
1903 G. B. Shaw Man & Superman ii. 50 That tone of intellectual snobbery.
1939 L. MacNeice Autumn Jrnl. xii. 49 Spiritually bankrupt Intellectual snobs.
2002 Skeptical Inquirer Jan. 39/1 Intellectual giants like Aristotle and Aquinas got it wrong.
c. That appeals to or engages the intellect; requiring the exercise of understanding.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > intelligence, cleverness > [adjective] > appealing to intelligence
intellectual1788
juicy1838
cerebral1929
1788 P. Stockdale Ximenes Pref. p. vii. The three last years of my life I have passed in retirement, which can never be unfruitful to him who is habituated to intellectual employment.
1834 T. B. Macaulay William Pitt in Ess. (1851) 286 Almost every intellectual employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady.
1871 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest IV. xviii. 216 Men who had clearly raised themselves by proficiency in the more intellectual branches of warfare.
1920 Times 7 July 12/6 The might find at their very door a stimulating intellectual activity which they had up to then been seeking abroad.
1962 B. T. Eiduson Scientists: their Psychol. World iii. 87 He is doing work that not only places a premium on the intellect but is often an exciting, intellectual pursuit.
2006 Time Out N.Y. 16 Mar. 82/2 Unlike his European counterparts, the povera part for Hammons is more than an intellectual exercise in high-low cultural dynamics.
3.
a. Characterized by or possessing understanding or intellectual capacity; intelligent. Now only as passing into sense A. 3b.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > intelligence, cleverness > [adjective]
keena1000
nimbleOE
wittya1100
smeighc1200
understandingc1200
aperta1330
skillwisea1340
witted1377
intelligiblea1382
well-feelinga1382
knowinga1398
finec1400
large?a1425
well-knowingc1425
of understanding1428
capax1432
sententiousc1440
well-wittedc1450
intellectual?a1475
clean1485
industriousc1487
intellective1509
cleanlyc1540
ingenious?a1560
fine-headed1574
conceited1579
conceitful1594
intelligenced1596
dexter1597
ingenuous1598
intelligent1598
senseful1598
parted1600
thinking1605
dexterical1607
solert1612
apprehensivea1616
dexterous1622
solertic1623
intelligential1646
callent1656
cunning1671
thoughtful1674
perceptive1696
clever1716
uptaking1756
spiritual1807
bright1815
gnostic1819
knowledgeable1825
brainy1845
opulent1851
opening1872
super-cerebral1916
brainiac1976
?a1475 (?a1425) tr. R. Higden Polychron. (Harl.) II. 183 The sawle of man..holdethe as the laweste place in the kynde or generalite of substaunces intellectualle [L. intellectualium substantiarum; Trev.: of gostes þat haueþ knowleche and vnderstondinge].
1483 W. Caxton tr. J. de Voragine Golden Legende f. 25/1 The heuen intellectuell, ben thaungellis, & thaungellis ben called heuen, by ye reason of dygnyte & of their vnderstondyng.
1599 J. Davies Nosce Teipsum 1 When their reasons eye..Could haue approch't th'eternall light as neere, As the intellectuall Angels could haue done.
1664 H. More Modest Enq. Myst. Iniquity ix. 26 [Angels] to whom Origen pronounces Good men equal, nor allows the glorious Stars, though they were intellectual, to be worshipped.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost ii. 147 Who would loose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being..? View more context for this quotation
1707 T. Milles Nat. Immortality of Soul viii. 365 All Souls, says, he, and every intellectual Being is made, because God made all things by Christ.
1797 A. Radcliffe Italian II. vi. 193 It appeared as if the strength of his intellectual self had subdued the infirmities of the body.
1867 E. F. Ellet Queens Amer. Soc. xiii. 290 Her regal grace and dignified deportment, her animated, intellectual countenance, her conversation..adorn the drawing-room.
b. Possessing a high degree of understanding or intelligence; given to pursuits that exercise the intellect; spec. devoted to academic or cultural interests. Cf. sense B. 3.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > intelligence, cleverness > intellectual superiority > [adjective]
intellectual1732
bluestocking1832
long-haired1842
intellectualist1857
high-browed1876
highbrow1884
intellectualistic1887
minority1930
egg-headed1957
eggheadish1963
1732 J. Costeker Fine Gentleman 12 Alas! how far is he from being the intellectual Man his Person represents him?
1791 J. Boswell Life Johnson I. 229 But the intellectual man is struck with it, as comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible.
1819 Ld. Byron Don Juan: Canto I xxii. 14 But—Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all?
1860 J. Tyndall Glaciers of Alps ii. xvi. 311 The interest which the intellectual public of England take in the question.
1913 H. Havel in Mother Earth Apr. 55 The most intellectual men of the time were fascinated by the brilliant genius of Dostoievsky.
1939 H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn 156 By comparison I was very bookish, intellectual, and worldly in a wrong way.
2001 M. Suri Death of Vishnu (2002) vii. 141 Those had been the days he was going around with his intellectual friends—the bearded, bespectacled group with whom he met every night to discuss philosophy and the fate of the world.
B. n.† 1. The intellectual faculty of a person; the intellect, the mind. Obsolete.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > intellect > [noun]
i-witc888
anyitOE
witOE
thoughtOE
inwitc1305
intention1340
mindc1384
understandingc1384
intentc1386
intelligencec1390
intellecta1398
minda1398
understanda1400
intellectionc1449
ingeny1477
intellectivec1484
mind-sight1587
intellectual1598
notion1604
intelligency1663
mental1676
nous1678
grasp1683
thinker1835
Geist1871
noesis1881
1598 J. Marston Scourge of Villanie iii. viii. sig. G5v The bright glosse of our intellectuall Is fouly soyl'd.
1602 2nd Pt. Returne fr. Parnassus iii. iv. 1344 How ere my dulled intellectuall, Capres less nimbly then it did a fore.
1661 J. Glanvill Vanity of Dogmatizing xiii. 124 The corporal Machine; which even on the most sublimate Intellectuals is dangerously influential.
1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost ix. 483 The Woman, opportune to all attempts, Her Husband..not nigh, Whose higher intellectual more I shun. View more context for this quotation
1826 S. T. Coleridge Notebks. 18 July (1990) IV. 5413 We men by the nature and constitution of our limited Intellectual are constrained to think of God in all these diverse relations.
2. In plural.† b. Qualities or endowments belonging or relating to the intellect. Obsolete.
a. Intellectual faculties; mental powers; senses, wits; = intellect n. 1c. Now archaic or Scottish.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > intellect > [noun] > intellectual powers
five witsc1200
wits1362
inwitc1380
spiritsc1450
fifteen wits1606
intellectuals1615
intellects1649
furniture1788
plant1861
marbles1902
1615 J. Stephens Satyrical Ess. 285 He is a fellow as much beholding to his five senses, as to his intellectuals.
c1660 J. Evelyn Diary anno 1635 (1955) II. 14 Reteining..her intellectuals..to the very article of her departure.
1713 A. Pope Narr. Robert Norris 19 The Gentleman is of good Condition, sound Intellectuals, and unerring Judgment.
a1732 T. Boston Crook in Lot (1805) 15 Some are weak to a degree in their intellectuals.
1815 C. Lamb Let. 9 Aug. in Lett. C. & M. A. Lamb (1978) III. 180 Your fear for Hartleys intellectuals is just and rational.
1847 T. De Quincey Secret Societies in Tait's Edinb. Mag. Aug. 514/1 I kept her intellectuals in a state of exercise, nearly amounting to persecution.
1897 J. E. Bruce Let. 28 July in A. M. Cromwell Unveiled Voices, Unvarnished Memories (2007) 232 Brother Tim is not as well balanced in his intellectuals as he might be.
1927 J. Buchan Witch Wood xvi. 280 Ye've taken doun frae her mouth a long screed o' crimes, but I'm of the minister's opinion, that they're what any distrackit body wad admit that wasna verra strong in the intellectuals and fand her paiks ower sair for her.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > intelligence, cleverness > intellectual superiority > [noun] > intellectual matters
intellectuals1654
(the) things of the mind1822
think-fest1947
1654 R. Baxter Saints Everlasting Rest (ed. 5) Add. sig. Zzz A Copious Digression, which I will not now Characterize either as to the Intellectuals or Morals.
1684 Z. Cawdrey Certainty Salvation 26 A person..of such eminent Moralities and Intellectuals.
1883 P. Schaff et al. Relig. Encycl. II. 1707/1 Forgetting that orthodoxy in the department of religion, of intellectuals, may be divorced from orthodoxy in life and conduct.
3. An intellectual being; a person of superior or supposedly superior intellect; spec. (a) a highly intelligent person who pursues academic interests; (b) a person who cultivates the mind or mental powers and pursues learning and cultural interests. Cf. senses A. 3a, A. 3b.From the late 19th cent. often with mildly disparaging connotations of elitism and probably influenced by the use at that time of French intellectuel to denote any of the culturally minded supporters of Alfred Dreyfus (see Dreyfusard n.).
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > understanding > intelligence, cleverness > intellectual superiority > [noun] > intellectual person
illuminate1602
intellectualist1605
intelligence1648
intellectual1652
aerialist1778
intellect1842
intellectuality1863
cerebralist1890
highbrow1898
longhair1920
egghead1952
boffin1954
boff1984
1652 E. Benlowes Theophila ii. v. 24 First Race of Intellectuals.
1723 H. Rowlands Mona Antiqua Restaurata xii. 255 It may be very often the Interest of Superiors, to depress and darken the Intellectuals..in order to dispose and model their Minds.
1813 Ld. Byron Jrnl. 23–24 Nov. in Lett. & Jrnls. (1974) III. 215 Canning is to be there, Frere and Sharpe,—perhaps Gifford...I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals.
1847 J. J. Ruskin Let. 2 Sept. in M. Lutyens Ruskins & Grays (1972) vi. 50 I want you to stand well with Lockhart and the Intellectuals.
1898 Daily News 30 Nov. 5/1 Proceeding to refer to the so-called intellectuals of Constantinople, who were engaged in discussion while the Turks were taking possession of the city.
1925 Amer. Mercury Oct. 130/2 That Young Intellectual who, if he ever finishes the assassinatory book of which we have heard these last three years, will tear the world up by the roots.
1931 A. Huxley Music at Night 226 Most professional intellectuals will approve of culture-snobbery (even while intensely disliking most individual culture-snobs).
1969 ‘M. Innes’ Family Affair i. 10 Bobby was an intellectual. His tutors knew that he would put up a good show in Schools, and only wondered how good it would be.
1977 R. Rendell Judgement in Stone (1979) iii. 17 He rather fostered the air he had of the absentminded, scatty, preoccupied young intellectual.
2001 Times 2 Jan. 8/7 The 58-year-old career civil servant..sees himself as an intellectual rather than a manager.
Compounds
intellectual capital n. the skills and knowledge possessed by an individual, organization, etc., regarded as a resource or asset.
ΚΠ
1818 New Monthly Mag. Sept. 139/2 In the works of Cowley, Inchbald, [etc.], may be found an exuberance of fancy,..and a rich harmony of language, sufficient to form the entire intellectual capital of other less favoured nations.
1880 J. O'Gallighan tr. E.-J. Menier Taxation Fixed Capital 381 I do not make a class apart of barristers, doctors, singers, dancers and other holders of intellectual capital.
1951 Amer. Econ. Rev. 41 703 The essential thing..is the shift in importance from material to intellectual capital.
2004 Managem. Today Dec. 84/3 Economists have started to value companies on their emotional capital..as well as their financial and intellectual capital.
intellectual disability n. (originally) any impairment of intellectual or learning ability; (in later use) spec. any neurodevelopmental condition affecting intellectual processes, educational attainment, and the acquisition of skills needed for independent living and social functioning.The term intellectual disability has replaced mental retardation in medical, educational, and many other settings, because it is considered less pejorative and discriminatory; intellectual development disorder is also used, for the same reason. In Britain the term learning disability or learning difficulties is often preferred, esp. by advocacy groups.
ΚΠ
1842 Lancet 19 Mar. 854/1 Mr. Sampson..and phrenologists generally in their discussions, speak of a ‘morbid state’ or ‘action’ of the brain; and by this..obviously have in a view a source or kind of moral and intellectual disability, different from that which is due to conformation.
1918 M. Parmelee Criminology xxiii. 385 These human beings were laboring under an intellectual disability which rendered them incapable of comprehending the nature of their acts.
1986 Advertiser (Adelaide) (Nexis) 18 Nov. Parents have always been and always will be, important advocates for persons with an intellectual disability.
2020 Aiken (S. Carolina) Gaz. 3 June 2 a/1 State health authorities have released information on several types of pre-existing health conditions found in coronavirus cases and deaths, which includes a wide range of issues from heart disease to intellectual disabilities.
intellectual elite n. prominent or superior intellectuals as a class; the intelligentsia.
ΚΠ
1830 Amer. Monthly Mag. (Boston) Feb. 760 With the rare spirits of society, the intellectual elite, the witty and lovely,..with these, conversation..is as the lark's flight to the owl's.
1869 J. S. Mill Subject. Women ii. 81 To see the futurity of the species has always been the privilege of the intellectual elite.
1956 Internat. Social Sci. Bull. 8 458 An intermediate tendency represented by the neo-traditionalist members of the intellectual elite.
2004 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Dec. 10/3 The young Amos longed to free himself from the tense nexus of the city's intellectual elite.
intellectual historian n. an expert in or student of intellectual history.
ΚΠ
1851 W. Hazlitt tr. ‘Talvi’ Hist. Colonization Amer. II. xxii. 197 An intellectual historian of the present day.
1977 M. Cohen Sensible Words 139 Conventional intellectual historians who read merely for summarizable ideas.
2008 New Yorker 24 Mar. 80/1 By the time the American Historical Association was founded, in 1884, the ‘cult of the fact’ (as the intellectual historian Peter Novick has called it) had achieved ascendancy.
intellectual history n. the history of ideas and thought; history with an emphasis on philosophical and ideological developments; an example of this.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > relative time > the past > history or knowledge about the past > [noun] > branches or types of history
ancient history1566
church story1581
archaeology1607
church history1609
local history1615
mythistory1731
human story1753
intellectual history1755
oral history1827
Assyriology1828
world history1833
hierologya1848
meta-history1854
Hibernologya1869
prehistory1871
proto-history1876
prehistorics1879
earth history1880
Sumerology1897
historiometry1909
black history1920
herstory1932
ethnohistory1938
meta-history1946
Annales1952
Hittitology1952
revisionism1965
longue durée1968
Warburgianism1977
1755 S. Johnson Dict. Eng. Lang. Pref. sig. C Such quotations are indeed little more than repetitions, which might justly be censured, did they not gratify the mind, by affording a kind of intellectual history.
1819 Morning Chron. 27 Oct. An Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology, designed to illustrate the Origin of Paganism, and the Intellectual History of Mankind in the first Ages.
1895 H. Rashdall Univ. Europe in Middle Ages I. iv. 108 The traditional ideas of intellectual history seem to admit of no epochs or new departures except in immediate connexion with a great discovery or a great name.
1900 Sc. Rev. Jan. 37 We..are having in increasing numbers, literary histories, religious histories, social histories, intellectual histories.
1976 M. Wood in N.Y. Rev. Bks. 4 Mar. 33/1 Structuralism..is perhaps best understood as a tangled and possibly unnamable strand in modern intellectual history.
2006 New Yorker 23 Jan. 91/3 This fun, if meandering, intellectual history of city-building in Victorian Britain traces the evolution of grim industrialized towns..through their heyday as wealthy cultural centers, and beyond.
intellectual property n. chiefly Law property (such as patents, trademarks, and copyright material) which is the product of invention or creativity, and does not exist in a tangible, physical form.
ΚΠ
1769 Monthly Rev. 41 290 What a niggard this Doctor is of his own, and how profuse he is of other people's intellectual property.
1808 Med. Repository 2nd Hexade 5 303 (heading) New-England Association in favour of Inventors and Discoverers, and particularly for the Protection of intellectual Property.
1845 C. L. Woodbury & G. Minot Rep. Cases Circuit Court U.S. (1847) i. 57 Only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own..as the wheat he cultivates.
1919 W. H. Dawson German Empire, 1867–1914 I. xii. 484 Amongst the newspapers..cut short were..Vorzwärts and Zukunft; but intellectual property is independent of time and space, and the suppressed sheets soon appeared abroad.
1968 Convent. World Intellect. Prop. Organization Art. 2 (viii) 3 in Parl. Papers 1970–71 (1970) IX. 649 ‘Intellectual property’ shall include the rights relating to:—literary, artistic and scientific works,..—industrial designs,—trademarks, [etc.].
1987 Independent 26 June 1/6 The proposal..is part of a Bill reforming the law of copyright and intellectual property.
2006 Wired Sept. 179/1 Bands will record under their own labels and retain ownership of all their intellectual property.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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adj.n.a1398