Intellect

How to spell intellect

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce intellect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does intellect mean?

1. nounThe capacity for reasoning, understanding, and abstract thought.

Intellect in a sentence

• The exam was designed to test intellect rather than memory.

• She brought a sharp intellect to every board meeting.

Where does intellect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin intellectus, meaning 'understanding' or 'perception', which was the past participle of the verb intellegere, 'to understand'. That verb was itself built from inter, meaning 'between', and legere, meaning 'to choose, gather, or read', so to understand was literally to 'choose between' or 'pick out' ideas from a jumble. English took the word in during the late 1300s, partly through Old French, to name the faculty of reasoning and knowing as distinct from feeling or will. The same legere root sits inside familiar relatives such as 'lecture', 'select', and 'collect', all of which involve gathering or picking. For spelling, it helps to remember the buried Latin inter-, which explains the double l in the middle and the single t at the end.

How the word is built

• intel- (from inter-: between)
• lect (from legere: to choose, gather, read)