A. adj.
1. a. Of, or belonging to, the intellect or understanding. (In quot. 1531 = INTELLECTIVE a. 1.) 1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. I. xvi. (Add. MS. 27944), God is..welle of goodnes and of ri{ygh}tiousnesse, intellectual si{ygh}t & vertue, {th}at come{th} of non o{th}er. 1531 ELYOT Gov. III. xxiv, The thirde parte of the soule is named the parte intellectuall or of understandynge. 1624 GATAKER Transubst. 97 By contemplation with intellectual eyes. 1654 WHITLOCK Zootomia 214 Easy Credulity, which is the third cause of Intellectuall slavery. 1725 POPE Odyss. xx. 414 Pallas clouds with intellectual gloom The Suitors souls, insensate of their doom! 1845 MAURICE Mor. Philos. in Encycl. Metrop. 652/1 That sense of intellectual lordship whereby a man is able to feel that he has that in him of which nature may present many likenesses, but to which it can offer no parallel. 1850 ROBERTSON Serm. Ser. III. iv. 43 An intellectual conception of the Almighty. 1878 MORLEY Carlyle 171 All unveracity, torpid or fervid, breeds intellectual dimness.
b. Qualifying a descriptive noun: That is such in relation to the intellect. 1731 CHANDLER tr. Limborch's Hist. Inquis. II. 28 He who is a concealed Heretick in this sense is generally called an Heretick purely intellectual. 1786 A. SEWARD Let. 25 Mar. (1811) I. 130 Those who are not interested in its anecdotes, can have little intellectual curiosity and no imagination. 1881 Atlantic Monthly May 597/1 He talked in a way..lively enough to sap his own intellectual integrity. 1891 A. JAMES Diary 24 June (1965) 216 Owing to my curious, given my inheritance and surroundings, complete absence of intellectual curiosity. 1891 W. JAMES Let. 21 Sept. in R. B. Perry Tht. & Char. of W. James (1935) II. 174 What a strange thing an intellectual atmosphere is! 1896 {emem} Will to Believe (1897) 9 Mr. Balfour gives the name of 'authority' to all those influences, born of the intellectual climate, that make hypotheses possible or impossible for us. 1899 Q. Rev. Jan. 29 The intellectual aristocracy of the thirteenth century had conquered. 1903 G. B. SHAW Man & Superman II. 50 That tone of intellectual snobbery. 1933 Week-end Rev. 11 Feb. 142/1 Intellectual integrity is necessary precisely in proportion as it is difficult. 1939 L. MACNEICE Autumn Jrnl. xii. 49 Spiritually bankrupt Intellectual snobs. 1965 H. A. GLEASON Ling. & Eng. Gram. 35 In the intellectual climate of the late nineteenth century this was most attractive. 1971 D. CRYSTAL Ling. iv. 187 We must..take account of the intellectual climate of the time.
c. That appeals to or engages the intellect; requiring the exercise of understanding. 1834 MACAULAY Ess., Pitt (1851) 286 Almost every intellectual employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady. 1871 FREEMAN Norm. Conq. (1876) IV. xviii. 216 Skill in the more intellectual branches of warfare.
d. intellectual property (Law), a general name for property (such as patents, trademarks, and copyright material) which is the product of invention or creativity, and which does not exist in a tangible, physical form. 1845 WOODBURY & MINOT Rep. Cases Circuit Court of U.S. (1847) I. 57 Only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own..as the wheat he cultivates. 1919 Readers' Guide Periodical Lit. 1915-19 Cumul. IV. 1582/1 (heading) Property, intellectual. See Patents. 1968 Convention World Intellectual Property Organiz. Art. 2 (viii) 3 in Parl. Papers 1970-71 (1970) IX. 649 'Intellectual property' shall include the rights relating to:{em}literary, artistic and scientific works,..{em}industrial designs,{em}trademarks, [etc.]. 1987 Independent 26 June 1/6 The proposal..is part of a Bill reforming the law of copyright and intellectual property.
{dag}2. Apprehensible only by the intellect or mind, non-material, spiritual; apprehended by the intellect alone (as distinguished from what is perceived by the senses), ideal. Obs. 1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. II. ii. (Add. MS. 27944), An aungel is substancia intellectual, alwey menable, free, and bodiles, seruinge god by grace & not bi kynde. c1491 Chast. Goddes Chyld. 47 An intellectual vision is callyd whanne the Insighte of the sowle by a wonderfull myghte of god is cleerly fastnyd in unbodely substaunce. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 270b, Of the intellectuall visyon, saynt Thomas gyueth example of the holy wryters of the scripture. 1605 BACON Adv. Learn. I. vi. §4 To descend from spirits and intellectual forms to sensible and material forms. 1704 NORRIS Ideal World II. iv. 271 By intellectual objects I mean those objects which the mind perceives, without having any such impressions made upon the body. 1711 POPE Temp. Fame 10 A train of phantoms in wild order rose, And, joined, this intellectual scene compose.
{dag}3. a. Characterized by or possessing 'intellection', understanding, or intellectual capacity; intelligent. Obs. exc. as in b. 1483 CAXTON Gold. Leg. 25/1 (R. Suppl.) The heuen intellectuell ben thaungellis, and thaungellis ben called heuen by ye reason of dignity, and of their understanding. 1599 DAVIES Nosce Teipsum, Hum. Knowl. iii, When their reason's eye..Could haue approch't th' eternall light as neere As the intellectual angels could haue done. 1664 H. MORE Myst. Iniq. ix. 26 [Angels] to whom Origen pronounces Good men equal, nor allows the glorious Stars, though they were intellectual, to be worshipped. 1667 MILTON P.L. II. 147 Who would loose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being? 1797 MRS. RADCLIFFE Italian xvii, It appeared as if the strength of his intellectual self had subdued the infirmities of the body.
b. Possessing a high degree of understanding; given to pursuits that exercise the intellect. 1819 BYRON Juan I. xxii, But{em}oh! 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.
{dag}1. The intellectual faculty or part of man; the intellect, mind. Obs. 1599 MARSTON Sco. Villanie III. viii, The bright glosse of our intellectuall Is fouly soyl'd. 1602 2nd Pt. Return fr. Parnass. III. iv. 1344 How ere my dulled intellectuall, Capres less nimbly then it did a fore. 1661 GLANVILL Van. Dogm. xiii. 124 The corporal Machine; which even on the most sublimate Intellectuals is dangerously influential. 1667 MILTON P.L. IX. 483 The Woman, opportune to all attempts, Her Husband..not nigh, Whose higher intellectual more I shun.
2. pl. Intellectual faculties; mental powers; 'wits'; = INTELLECT n. 3. arch. 1615 J. STEPHENS Satyr. Ess. 285 He is a fellow as much beholding to his five senses, as to his intellectuals. c1645 EVELYN Diary 29 Sept. an. 1635 Retaining her intellectuals..to the very article of her departure. 1713 SWIFT Frenzy Denny Wks. 1755 III. I. 144 The gentleman is of good condition, sound intellectuals, and unerring judgment. a1732 T. BOSTON Crook in Lot (1805) 15 Some are weak to a degree in their intellectuals. a1834 LAMB Lett. x. to Southey 96 Your fear for Hartley's intellectuals is just and rational. 1847 DE QUINCEY Secr. Societies Wks. 1863 VI. 237, I keep her intellectuals in a state of exercise, nearly amounting to persecution.
3. pl. Things pertaining to the intellect. 1650 BAXTER Saints' R. IV. xi. Add. (1662) 823 A Copious Digression, which I will not now Characterize either as to the Intellectuals or Morals. 1882 SCHAFF Encycl. Relig. Knowl. II. 1707/1 Forgetting that orthodoxy in the department of religion, of intellectuals, may be divorced from orthodoxy in life and conduct.
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,{em}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.