Yann
A. adj. [...] 3b. Possessing a high degree of understanding; given to pursuits that exercise the intellect. 1819 BYRON Juan I. xxii, Butoh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, Inform us truly, have they not hen-peck'd you all? 1860 TYNDALL Glac. II. xvi. 311 The interest which the intellectual public of England take in the question. 1876 M. E. BRADDON J. Haggard's Dau. II. 35 Priscilla cast away her velvet head-band, reckless of the little mourning brooch..which confined it on her intellectual brow.
B. n. [...] 4. An intellectual being; a person possessing or supposed to possess superior powers of intellect: see A. 3, 3b. 1652 BENLOWES Theoph. II. v, First race of Intellectuals. 1813 BYRON Jrnl. in Moore B.'s Wks. (1836) II. 271 Canning is to be here, Frere and Sharpe,perhaps Gifford...I wish I may be well enough to listen to these intellectuals. 1847 J. J. RUSKIN Let. 2 Sept. in M. Lutyens Ruskins & Grays (1972) vi. 50, I want you to stand well with Lockhart and the Intellectuals. 1884 A. A. WATTS Life A. Watts I. 124 The silent person who astonished Coleridge at a dinner of intellectuals. 1898 Daily News 30 Nov. 5/1 Proceeding to refer to the so-called intellectuals of Constantinople, who were engaged in discussion while the Turks were taking possession of the city. 1903 Sat. Rev. 19 Dec. 760/2 We are compelled to rank higher the mind of the average young man of fashion than the mind of the average ‘intellectual’ at those literary tea-parties. 1931 [see CULTURE n. 5d]. 1937 [see BRAIN TRUST, BRAINS TRUST]. 1960 Times Lit. Suppl. 12 Aug. 513/2 The English have a great respect for brute facts; and the intellectual in politics often looks to them like a man busily engaged in brushing unpleasant facts under the carpet. 1974 Times 15 Feb. 15/8 Russian history has set a pattern of alienated intellectuals.