noetic

American  

[noh-et-ik] / noʊˈɛt ɪk /

adjective

1. of or relating to the mind.

2. originating in or apprehended by the reason.

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noetic British  

/ nəʊˈɛtɪk /

adjective

1. of or relating to the mind, esp to its rational and intellectual faculties

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Etymology

Origin of noetic

First recorded in 1645–55; from Greek noētikós “intelligent, intellectual” equivalent to nóē(sis) noesis + -tikos -tic

Explanation

Something that is noetic has to do with thinking and reason. If you praise your friend's noetic abilities, you think she's very smart. Use the adjective noetic to describe intellectual thought, like the triumph of the noetic part of your brain over your instincts. It rhymes with poetic, but unlike the emotional content that is usually associated with poetry, things that are noetic focus on reason. The word traces back to the Greek word for mind or thought, noos.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

noetic

That, of course, is more or less what Ian Holloway has been saying this week, possibly in between semi-coherent outbursts concerning the overall state of football, poultry and advanced noetic theory.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2011

And even in man, only as man is supernatural, above nature, noetic.

From Literary Remains, Volume 2 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

These hours have for us a noetic value—"some veil did fall"—revealing visions remembered even unto the hour of death.

From Four-Dimensional Vistas by Claude Fayette Bragdon

Now fatigue, personal and perhaps racial, is just what arrests in the incomplete and mere memory or noetic stage.

From Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by G. Stanley Hall

Empiricism on the other hand is satisfied with the type of noetic unity that is humanly familiar.

From Pragmatism by William James