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
Sit in the building that originated “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” and you feel a certain pressure to intellectualize your ideas, to overstress your originality.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2025
I’m a psychologist and so the way I manage any negative feelings is to intellectualize: I think about the causes and context of a situation.
From Salon ● Dec. 9, 2024
Martiel doesn’t intellectualize slavery’s wake; instead, he makes it terribly present, in the body of a living person: his own.
From New York Times ● May 23, 2024
How people who can’t face their own negative emotions intellectualize things?
From "Please Ignore Vera Dietz" by A.S. King
I’d say because I had intellectualized and lived with Macbeth in a real way, it allowed me to humanize him a bit more as Macduff.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 12, 2022
“Though it’s abstract, it doesn’t strike me as intellectualized or at all forced,” he says.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 23, 2021
“I made some kind of intellectualized comment, and then he said, ‘Can you say it in your own words?’
From New York Times ● Jan. 7, 2021
I don’t know the appeal—I’ve not intellectualized it.
From Salon ● May 24, 2019
Their defects are equally plain; one sees that their simplicity all but ceases to be a virtue at times, and that at times their feeling is too much intellectualized.
From Modern Italian Poets Essays and Versions by William Dean Howells
“We see them as intellectualizing or sanitizing radical-right ideas that are then taken up by the parties in power,” said Allchorn, the U.K. extremism expert.
From Salon ● Jul. 21, 2026
There was no looking back or intellectualizing what I do in those moments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2022
There is a logical point behind what I am saying, not just cynical intellectualizing garbage.
From New York Times ● Dec. 26, 2017
Even the punk references — and there are always references to punk in fashion — were more focused on intellectualizing disruption, on considering the craftsmanship and taking the long view.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 8, 2017
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
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