intellectualize
Americanverb (used with object)
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to seek or consider the rational content or form of.
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to make intellectual.
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to analyze (something) intellectually or rationally.
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to ignore the emotional or psychological significance of (an action, feeling, dream, etc.) by an excessively intellectual or abstract explanation.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to make or become intellectual
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(tr) to treat or consider in an intellectual way; rationalize
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of intellectualize
First recorded in 1810–20; intellectual + -ize
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“If you’re able to intellectualize that information and verbalize, this isn’t for you,” she says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2025
You can sit back afterward and intellectualize everything, but when you’re watching it, even when it’s weird, it makes logical sense.
From Salon ● Feb. 24, 2025
Levi doesn’t intellectualize it like that, doesn’t have a straightforward intention.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 12, 2023
“I could intellectualize it to no end,” Kasdan said.
From New York Times ● Dec. 24, 2021
How people who can’t face their own negative emotions intellectualize things?
From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King
Nabers: Episode 6 is a step-out episode that allows us to intellectualize some of the stuff that we’ve seen in a way that we probably haven’t intellectualized before.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 17, 2023
“Though it’s abstract, it doesn’t strike me as intellectualized or at all forced,” he says.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 23, 2021
I don’t know the appeal—I’ve not intellectualized it.
From Salon ● May 24, 2019
“We have so intellectualized our faith—there’s a need to bring head, heart, and body into the forefront of our lives, for the future of the Christian tradition.”
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 8, 2019
Elsewhere Lowell has given another admirable definition: "Sentiment is intellectualized emotion, emotion precipitated, as it were, in pretty crystals of thought."
From Primitive Love and Love-Stories by Henry Theophilus Finck
My advice, when you visit this show, is to set aside the Wolfgang Tillmans “Reader” and forget about intellectualizing the ’90s, and let the photographs simply wash over you.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 15, 2022
Putting all intellectualizing aside for a moment, the main reason "Peacemaker" succeeds is because it remembers to have a good time while delivering a satisfying wallop to people that we can universally agree are terrible.
From Salon ● Feb. 18, 2022
There was no looking back or intellectualizing what I do in those moments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2022
The actual backstage behavior of the alternative era was another story, obviously, and a lot of bad behavior was justified by intellectualizing shock tactics as “transgressive.”
From Slate ● Mar. 22, 2019
We shall in the next section examine this point of view in more detail; we are referring to it here simply as an illustration of intellectualizing of morals.
From Human Traits and their Social Significance by Irwin Edman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
