INTELLECTUAL

a. n.

5 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
a.

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.

2.
a.

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.

3.
a.

Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as, intellectual employments.

4.
a.

Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind; as, intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy.

5.
n.

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.