Intellectual vs Bookish - What's the difference?
intellectual | bookish | Synonyms |
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.
Given to reading; fond of study; better acquainted with books than with people; learned from books.
* 1783 , , The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin ?, page 16
Characterized by a method of expression generally found in books.
* 1996 , Helen L. Harrison, Pistoles/Paroles: Money and Language in Seventeenth-century French Comedy? , page 50
Intellectual is a synonym of bookish.
As adjectives the difference between intellectual and bookish
is that intellectual is belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc while bookish is given to reading; fond of study; better acquainted with books than with people; learned from books.As a noun intellectual
is an intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.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 ...
Antonyms
* non-intellectualDerived terms
* anti-intellectual * intellectual capital * intellectual disability * intellectual honesty * intellectuality * intellectual journey * intellectual property * intellectual rights * organic intellectualNoun
(en noun)Derived terms
* public intellectualSee also
* intelligentsia * egghead * nerd * geek * highbrowbookish
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. This bookish inclination at length determined my father to make me a printer, though he had already one son (James) of that profession.
- Obviously, neither Corneille nor the characters who laugh at excessively bookish speech avoid literary convention.
