intellectual

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   appealing to or using the intellect

   satire is an intellectual weapon

2. 2
   adj

   of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind

   intellectual problems

3. 3
   adj

   Pertaining to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive.

   intellectual powers, activities, etc.

4. 4
   adj

   Endowed with intellect; having a keen sense of understanding; having the capacity for higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or cleverness

   an intellectual person

5. 5
   adj

   Suitable for exercising one's intellect; perceived by the intellect

   intellectual employments

6. 6
   adj

   Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind.

   intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy

7. 7
   adj

   Spiritual.

   I deem not profitless those fleeting moods / Of shadowy exultation; not for this, / That they are kindred to our purer mind / And intellectual life […]

8. 8
   noun

   An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.

   It should be noted that there is now no intelligentsia that is not in some sense "Left". Perhaps the last right-wing intellectual was T. E. Lawrence. Since about 1930 everyone describable as an “intellectual” has lived in a state of chronic discontent with the existing order.

Etymology

From Old French intellectuel, from Latin intellectualis.