Meaning & use
intellectual
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Connected with thinking, learning and understanding ideas rather than with feelings or physical action.
Grammar: Usually before a noun: intellectual curiosity, an intellectual challenge.
Patterns
- intellectual property
- an intellectual challenge
The puzzle was an intellectual challenge for the whole class.
He lost interest in sport and turned to intellectual pursuits.
Her intellectual curiosity led her to study three languages.
adjectivecomparable
Fond of serious thought and learning, or having a high level of intelligence.
Grammar: Can describe a person: she is very intellectual.
The intellectual young priest read philosophy for fun.
They are an intellectual couple who host debates at home.
He looked intellectual in his round glasses.
nouncountable
A person who spends a lot of effort on study, reasoning and discussing complex ideas, often as a career.
Grammar: Takes a/an: she is a leading intellectual.
Patterns
- a leading intellectual
- a public intellectual
The magazine publishes essays by leading intellectuals.
As a public intellectual, she often appears on television.
The regime jailed writers and other intellectuals.
Word forms
| plural | intellectuals |
|---|---|
| comparative | more intellectual |
| superlative | most intellectual |
Common combinations
- intellectual property
- The firm protects its intellectual property with patents.
- intellectual curiosity
- Intellectual curiosity drives good research.
- intellectual challenge
- Chess offers a real intellectual challenge.
- public intellectual
- The novelist became a public intellectual.
- intellectual discussion
- We had a lively intellectual discussion over dinner.
Synonyms and how they differ
- scholarly
- Scholarly points to formal, academic study, while intellectual is broader and covers any serious thinking.
- cerebral
- Cerebral stresses reasoning over emotion and can sound a little cold.
- academic
- Academic ties to universities and can imply theory with little practical use.
- highbrow
- Highbrow is often critical and suggests culture meant for an educated elite.
Opposites
Word family
- intellect noun
- the power of reasoning and understanding
- intellectually adverb
- in a way relating to the mind
- intellectualism noun
- devotion to the use of the intellect
- intelligent adjective
- good at learning and understanding
Commonly confused: intellectual or intelligent?
intellectual vs intelligent
Intelligent describes quick, clever thinking; intellectual describes interest in study and ideas, and a person can be one without the other.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'intellectual' as a noun?
Choose one answer.
In 'a well-known intellectual' the word names a person, so it is a noun. In the other sentences it modifies a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “intellectual”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.