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Intellectual vs Impracticable - What's the difference?

intellectual | impracticable | Related terms |

As adjectives the difference between intellectual and impracticable

is that intellectual is belonging to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive; as, intellectual powers, activities, etc while impracticable is not practicable; impossible or difficult in practice.

As nouns the difference between intellectual and impracticable

is that intellectual is an intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters while impracticable is an unmanageable person.

intellectual

Alternative forms

* intellectuall (obsolete)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • 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):
  • 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-intellectual

    Derived terms

    * anti-intellectual * intellectual capital * intellectual disability * intellectual honesty * intellectuality * intellectual journey * intellectual property * intellectual rights * organic intellectual

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An intelligent, learned person, especially one who discourses about learned matters.
  • (archaic) The intellect or understanding; mental powers or faculties.
  • Derived terms

    * public intellectual

    See also

    * intelligentsia * egghead * nerd * geek * highbrow

    impracticable

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Not practicable; impossible or difficult in practice.
  • Of a passage or road: impassable.
  • (obsolete) Of a person or thing: unmanageable.
  • * {{quote-book, 1713, , The Fair Penitent citation
  • , passage=And yet this tough impracticable heart / Is govern'd by a dainty-finger'd girl ;
  • * {{quote-book, c. 1841, , Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks, year_published=1960 citation
  • , passage=H. is a person of extraordinary health & vigor, of unerring perception, & equal expression; and yet he is impracticable , and does not flow through his pen or (in any of our legitimate aqueducts) through his tongue.}}

    Antonyms

    * (impossible or difficult in practice) practicable

    Derived terms

    * impracticability * impracticableness * impracticably

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) An unmanageable person.
  • * {{quote-book, 1829, Henry Barkley Henderson, The Bengalee, or Sketches of Society and Manners in the East citation
  • , passage=They were not allowed, of course, to join us in the sitting room, partly that their practice might not be disturbed, but principally, that I was looked upon as an utter impracticable . }}
  • * {{quote-book, 1867, , Famous Americans of Recent Times citation
  • , passage=The strict constructionists had dwindled to a few impracticables , headed by John Randolph. }}
  • * {{quote-book, 1870, , Society and Solitude citation
  • , passage=Then there are the gladiators, to whom it is always a battle ; 'tis no matter on which side, they fight for victory; then the heady men, the egotists, the monotones, the steriles, and the impracticables .}}