| / English Dictionary |
INTELLIGENT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Having the capacity for thought and reason especially to a high degree
Example:
an intelligent question
Classified under:
Similar:
agile; nimble (mentally quick)
apt; clever (mentally quick and resourceful)
brainy; brilliant; smart as a whip (having or marked by unusual and impressive intelligence)
bright; smart (characterized by quickness and ease in learning)
born; innate; natural (being talented through inherited qualities)
quick; ready (apprehending and responding with speed and sensitivity)
prehensile (having a keen intellect)
scintillating (brilliantly clever)
searching; trenchant (having keenness and forcefulness and penetration in thought, expression, or intellect)
Also:
smart (showing mental alertness and calculation and resourcefulness)
precocious (characterized by or characteristic of exceptionally early development or maturity (especially in mental aptitude))
Attribute:
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Antonym:
unintelligent (lacking intelligence)
Derivation:
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Endowed with the capacity to reason
Synonyms:
intelligent; reasoning; thinking
Classified under:
Similar:
rational (consistent with or based on or using reason)
Derivation:
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Exercising or showing good judgment
Example:
no sound explanation for his decision
Synonyms:
healthy; intelligent; level-headed; levelheaded; sound
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
reasonable; sensible (showing reason or sound judgment)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Possessing sound knowledge
Example:
well-informed readers
Synonyms:
intelligent; well-informed
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
sophisticated (having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir-faire)
Context examples:
He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of grizzled brown.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
An initiative set up to find signs of intelligent life in the universe has detected a series of mysterious radio signals from a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years away.
(Mysterious Radio Signals Detected from Deep Space, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
This discovery, led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, was aided by Eve, an artificially-intelligent ‘robot scientist’.
(Toothpaste ingredient may help fight drug-resistant malaria, University of Cambridge)
He was very tall and strong, with a face as big as a ham—plain and pale, but intelligent and smiling.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
"I knows him!" and, after a few convulsive efforts, the red legs took the shape of a pair of compasses, and the intelligent pupil triumphantly shouted, "It's a We, Dranpa, it's a We!"
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
He seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr. Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had departed.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in any errand in the town; and though spurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as they were, though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timed and powerless warmth, was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's services and gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to be less disagreeable.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
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