Abstruse vs Intellectual - What's the difference?
abstruse | intellectual | Related terms |
(obsolete) Concealed or hidden out of the way; secret.
* 1612 , Thomas Shelton (translator), Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish author), The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant Don-Quixote of the Mancha , Part 4, Chapter 15, page 500:
* 1667 , , Paradise Lost :
Difficult to comprehend or understand; recondite; obscure; esoteric.
* 1548 , Bishop John Hooper, A Declaration of the Ten Holy Comaundementes of Almygthye God , Chapter 17 Curiosity, Page 218:
* 1748 , David Hume, Enquiries concerning the human understanding and concerning the principles of moral. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. ยง 13.
* 1855 , , History of Latin Christianity :
Belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc.
Endowed with intellect; having the power of understanding; having capacity for the higher forms of knowledge or thought; characterized by intelligence or mental capacity; as, an intellectual person.
Suitable for exercising the intellect; formed by, and existing for, the intellect alone; perceived by the intellect; as, intellectual employments.
Relating to the understanding; treating of the mind; as, intellectual philosophy, sometimes called "mental" philosophy.
(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):
An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.
(archaic) The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.
Abstruse is a related term of intellectual.
As adjectives the difference between abstruse and intellectual
is that abstruse is (obsolete) concealed or hidden out of the way; secret while intellectual is belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc.As a noun intellectual is
an intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.abstruse
English
Adjective
(en-adj)- O who is he that could carrie newes to our olde father, that thou wert but aliue, although thou wert hidden in the most abstruse dungeons of Barbarie; for his riches, my brothers and mine would fetch thee from thence.
- The eternal eye whose sight discerns abstrusest thoughts.
- ...at the end of his cogitacions, fyndithe more abstruse , and doutfull obiections then at the beginning...
- It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have the preference above the accurate and abstruse ;
- Profound and abstruse topics.
Usage notes
* More abstruse and most abstruse are the preferred forms over abstruser and abstrusest.Derived terms
* abstrusely * abstrusenessReferences
External links
* * ----intellectual
Alternative forms
* intellectuall (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)- I deem not profitless those fleeting moods / Of shadowy exultation; not for this, / That they are kindred to our purer mind / And intellectual life ...