Meaning & use
cerebral personality
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A way of behaving that is thoughtful, intellectual, and more interested in ideas than in emotions or action.
Grammar: Countable and usually used with 'a' or 'her/his': she has a cerebral personality.
Patterns
- have a cerebral personality
- a cerebral personality type
His cerebral personality makes him a great chess player but a quiet dinner guest.
People with a cerebral personality often prefer reading to parties.
She brings a cerebral personality to a team that usually acts on instinct.
nouncountable
A person whose character is dominated by thinking and analysis rather than feeling.
Grammar: Used of a person, often slightly admiring: he is a cerebral personality in a physical sport.
Patterns
- be a cerebral personality
- a cerebral personality in something
He was a cerebral personality in a sport built on speed and strength.
The film's hero is a cerebral personality who solves problems by thinking.
Word forms
| plural | cerebral personalities |
|---|
Common combinations
- a highly cerebral personality
- Her highly cerebral personality surprises people who expect artists to be emotional.
- a cerebral personality type
- The test describes him as a cerebral personality type.
- have a cerebral personality
- Do you have to have a cerebral personality to enjoy philosophy?
Synonyms and how they differ
- intellectual
- Intellectual stresses education and serious study, while cerebral stresses a thinking, unemotional style.
- thoughtful
- Thoughtful means considerate or full of thought; it can suggest kindness, which cerebral does not.
- brainy
- Brainy is informal and just means clever; cerebral sounds more formal and slightly cool.
Opposites
Word family
- cerebral adjective
- relating to the brain or to careful thinking
- cerebrally adverb
- in a thoughtful, intellectual way
Commonly confused: cerebral personality or cerebral palsy?
cerebral personality vs cerebral palsy
A medical condition affecting movement; it has nothing to do with being intellectual.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'cerebral personality' most naturally?
Choose one answer.
'Cerebral' means thoughtful and intellectual, so loving debate fits. The others describe emotional or unthinking behavior, which contradicts the word.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cerebral personality”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.