intellectual Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun a person who uses the mind creatively
intellect.
adjective satellite of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind
noetic; rational.
- intellectual problems
- the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man
adjective 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
adjective involving intelligence rather than emotions or instinct
cerebral.
- a cerebral approach to the problem
- cerebral drama

L. intellectualis: cf. F. intellectuel.

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.
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.
Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as, intellectual employments.
Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind; as, intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy.

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.