different between intellectual vs existential

English

Alternative forms

• intellectuall (obsolete)

Etymology

From Old French intellectuel, from Latin intellectualis

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??nt??l?k(t)???l/

Adjective

intellectual (comparative more intellectual, superlative most intellectual)

1. Pertaining to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive.
   • 1920, Harold Monro, Preface to s:The year's at the spring; an anthology of recent poetry

     Pleasure is various, but it cannot exist where the emotions or the imagination have not been powerfully stirred. Whether it be called sensual or intellectual, pleasure cannot be willed

2. Endowed with intellect; having a keen sense of understanding; having the capacity for higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or cleverness
   • 1894, Edgar Wilson Nye, Nye's History of the USA Chapter 30

     The Fenimore Cooper Indian is no doubt a brave and highly intellectual person, educated abroad, refined and cultivated by foreign travel, graceful in the grub dance or scalp walk-around, yet tender-hearted as a girl, walking by night fifty-seven miles in a single evening to warn his white friends of danger.

3. Suitable for exercising one's intellect; perceived by the intellect
   • 1916, Joseph McCabe, The Tyranny of Shams Chapter IX

   • A good deal of nonsense is written about sport and entertainment. Many of us can, with pleasant ease, suspend a severely intellectual task for a few hours to witness a first-class football match.

4. Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind.

5. (archaic, poetic) Spiritual.
   • 1805, William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book II, lines 331-334 (eds. Jonathan Wordsworth, M. H. Abrams, & Stephen Gill, published by W. W. Norton & Company, 1979):

     I deem not profitless those fleeting moods / Of shadowy exultation; not for this, / That they are kindred to our purer mind / And intellectual life […]

Antonyms

• nonintellectual

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

intellectual (plural intellectuals)

1. An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.

   Synonym: highbrow

   Coordinate terms: egghead, nerd, geek

   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, pp. 20–21:

     ‘You know I hate intellectuals.’
     ‘You mean you hate people who are cleverer than you are.’
     ‘Yes. I suppose that's why I like you so much, Tom.’

2. (archaic) The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.
   • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, 1650, Book I, Chapter 1, p. 2,^[1]

     […] although their intellectuals had not failed in the theory of truth, yet did the inservient and brutall faculties control the suggestion of reason […]

Derived terms

• public intellectual

Translations

See also

• intelligentsia

References

• intellectual in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• "intellectual" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 169.

English

Etymology

Late Latin existentialis, from existentia.

Adjective

existential (not comparable)

1. Of, or relating to existence.
2. Concerning the very existence of, especially with regard to extinction.
3. Based on experience; empirical.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture I:

     In recent books on logic, distinction is made between two orders of inquiry concerning anything. First, what is the nature of it? how did it come about? what is its constitution, origin, and history? And second, What is its importance, meaning, or significance, now that it is once here? The answer to the one question is given in an existential judgment or proposition. The answer to the other is a proposition of value, what the Germans call a Werthurtheil ...

4. (philosophy) Of, or relating to existentialism.
5. (linguistics) Relating to part of a clause that indicates existence, e.g. "there is".

Antonyms

• non-phenomenal
• noumenal
• non-metaphysical

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Noun

existential (plural existentials)

1. (linguistics) Ellipsis of existential clause
   • 2014, Silvia Luraghi, Tuomas Huumo, Partitive Cases and Related Categories, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG (?ISBN), page 153:

     We argue that existentials form a radial category, with a prototype and less canonical instances, where the prototype is clearly definable but the actual borderline between existentials and other clause types is fuzzy.

2. (programming) Ellipsis of existential type

   Coordinate term: generic

Further reading

• "existential" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 123.

References