Intelligent Meaning
/ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/Definition, CEFR level A2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjOf high or especially quick cognitive capacity, bright.
adjWell thought-out, well considered.
Sentence Examples
The habits of highly intelligent people offer a clue as to how to do that.
Mary is both intelligent and kind.
She was far more intelligent than her sister.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She is a very ____ student who always gets the highest grades in class.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ dolphin was able to learn dozens of different commands from its trainer very quickly.
Word Origin & History
From Middle French intelligent, from Latin intellegēns (“discerning”), present active participle of intellegō (“understand, comprehend”), itself from inter (“between”) + legō (“choose, pick out, read”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Anstruther laughed good-naturedly. “[…] I shall take out half a dozen intelligent maistries from our Press and get them to give our villagers instruction when they begin work and when they are in the fields.”"
— 1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 5, in Pulling the Strings:
"Now, as all intelligents are doomed to pass probationary states, it is highly probable that many intelligents, long antecedent to the foundation of our world, may have tarnished their innocence; or worse, many may have by disobedience fallen."
— 1832, The Comparative Coincidence of Reason and Scripture, volume II, London: J[ohn] Hatchard and Son, […], page 253:
"Like many Russian intelligents, the Merežkovskijs, together with Filosofov and the young student Vladimir Zlobin, fled from Russia in 1919."
— 1972, Olga Matich, Paradox in the Religious Poetry of Zinaida Gippius, Wilhelm Fink, →ISBN, page 30:
"But if you fall away from your faith, as many intelligents have fallen away, then you will no longer be Russia or Holy Rus’, but a rabble of all kinds of other faiths who wish to destroy one another."
— 2000, Nadieszda Kizenko, A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People, The Pennsylvania State University Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 248:
"Many Russian intelligents, in particular scientists, that already in tsarist times were “infected” by liberal and even socialist ideas found in the revolution and the societal structure that followed, with all its horrible features, positive sides."
— 2011, Evgenii L’vovich Feinberg, translated by Andrei Vladimirovich Leonidov, Physicists: Epoch and Personalities (History of Modern Physical Sciences; 4), World Scientific, →ISBN, page 43:
Explore More A2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She is a very ____ student who always gets the highest grades in class.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The ____ dolphin was able to learn dozens of different commands from its trainer very quickly.