intelligentsia

[in-tel-i-jent-see-uh, -gent-]

plural noun

1. intellectuals considered as a group or class, especially as a cultural, social, or political elite.

intelligentsia

/ ɪnˌtɛlɪˈdʒɛntsɪə /

noun

1. the educated or intellectual people in a society or community

intelligentsia

1. Intellectuals who form an artistic, social, or political vanguard or elite.

Word History and Origins

Origin of intelligentsia¹

1905–10; < Russian intelligéntsia < Latin intelligentia intelligence

Word History and Origins

Origin of intelligentsia¹

C20: from Russian intelligentsiya, from Latin intellegentia _intelligence

Example Sentences

When the leftist intelligentsia split into feuding factions, Cowley and the New Republic obstinately persisted in advocating for Stalinism despite ample proof of its brutality and despotism.

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But he had the support of the intelligentsia at the New York Review of Books and Village Voice, and a theater culture that was willing to accommodate him while he found his footing.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

He attacked the “intelligentsia” of the Democratic Party for not supporting his father, former President Joe Biden, when he ran for reelection.

Read more on Salon

The right-wing intelligentsia has seemed to see this as a kind of respectable fascism — without all the 20th century unpleasantness with which the term is associated.

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She said her career as a painter, printmaker, collage and stained-glass artist and teacher meant she mixed with the "intelligentsia of Swansea".

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• circle 
• club 
• company 
• degree 
• family 
• grade 
• league 
• place 
• position