intelligent
[in-tel-i-juhnt]
- having good understanding or a high mental capacity; quick to comprehend, as persons or animals: an intelligent student.
- displaying or characterized by quickness of understanding, sound thought, or good judgment: an intelligent reply.
- having the faculty of reasoning and understanding; possessing intelligence: intelligent beings in outer space.
- Computers. pertaining to the ability to do data processing locally; smart: An intelligent terminal can edit input before transmission to a host computer.Compare dumb(def 8).
- Archaic. having understanding or knowledge (usually followed by of).
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Origin of intelligent
Synonyms
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.com1. bright. Intelligent, intellectual describe distinctive mental capacity. Intelligent often suggests a natural quickness of understanding: an intelligent reader. Intellectual implies not only having a high degree of understanding, but also a capacity and taste for the higher forms of knowledge: intellectual interests. 2. astute, clever, alert, bright, apt, discerning, shrewd, smart. See sharp.
Antonyms
1, 2. stupid.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
imaginativeinventivewisebrilliantknowledgeableresourcefulcreativebrightperceptivesmartrationalbrainywell-informedoriginalastuteableacutealertaliveaptExamples from the Web for intelligent
Contemporary Examples
Governor Jindal seems like a good guy, intelligent, reasonable.
Vice President Jindal: “Here is a good, intelligent, and reasonable plan for legislative action.”
Genuinely funny and intelligent and navel-gazing and strange, these parts might eventually add up to something truly big.
Lars Iyer’s ‘Wittgenstein Jr.’ Plumbs the Deep Fun of Philosophical FictionDrew Smith
October 1, 2014
Beijing doesn't believe that the people of Hong Kong are intelligent enough to find their own way.
Large numbers believe that Kate is intelligent (49%) and even larger numbers (65%) saw her as a potentially positive role model.
Historical Examples
It is composed of a brave, a free, a virtuous, and an intelligent people.
He was handsome and possessed a most intelligent and expressive countenance.
The Grand Old ManRichard B. Cook
Now it was another and older man, daring, intelligent, unscrupulous.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
He once had been friendly with all his intelligent neighbors, no matter what their nationality.
In the ValleyHarold Frederic
To get justice, or even an intelligent hearing, from these people, was hopeless.
In the ValleyHarold Frederic
intelligent
- having or indicating intelligence
- having high intelligence; clever
- indicating high intelligence; perceptivean intelligent guess
- guided by reason; rational
- (of computerized functions) able to modify action in the light of ongoing events
- (postpositive foll by of) archaic having knowledge or informationthey were intelligent of his whereabouts
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for intelligent
adj.
c.1500, a back-formation from intelligence or else from Latin intelligentem (nominative intelligens), present participle of intelligere, earlier intellegere (see intelligence). Intelligent design, as a name for an alternative to atheistic cosmology and the theory of evolution, is from 1999. Related: Intelligently.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper