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  1. intelligentsia love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. The intellectual elite of a society.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The intellectual élite of a society (especially in nineteenth-century Poland, in Russia and later the Soviet Union).

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. an educated and intellectual{2} elite; intellectuals, collectively or considered as a class.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an educated and intellectual elite

Etymologies

  1. From Russian интеллигенция (intelligéncija) or Polish inteligencja, from Latin intellegentia ("intelligence"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Russian intelligentsiya, from Latin intelligentia, intelligence, from intelligēns, intelligent-, intelligent; see intelligent. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “The word intelligentsia derives from the Latin word intelligentia, meaning a group of people engaged in complex mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture.”

    Boing Boing

  • “GINGRICH: No. The intellectuals around me would -- if you wanted to use the term intelligentsia -- I mean, there's a self-identified, elite intellectual group in America who see themselves as the guardians of this alternative to traditional American civilization, and these are folks who write what I think is largely gibberish and explain deconstructionism and all sorts of ideas that I, frankly, don't pay much attention to, but that are somehow mystically going to be better than American civilization: multiculturalism, the counterculture, etc.”

    To Renew America

  • “I find the choice of words interesting - 'intelligentsia' is from the Russian I believe.”

    Are You A Communitarian ?

  • “The idea that "the worldview of the intelligentsia is necessarily in tension with a religious worldview, is plainly wrong.”

    The Huffington Post: Amarnath Amarasingam: Are American College Professors Religious?

  • “The key motive for self-replicating propaganda amongst the Western intelligentsia is status-seeking — what in this context is labelled moral vanity ….”

    Think Progress » Sen. Edward Kennedy says voting against the Iraq war

  • “The word intelligentsia was coined to describe the class of revolutionary thinkers who are at the center of Part II, Shipwreck.”

    The Heart of the Matter: Wilson Versus the Rest

  • “The attack on the intelligentsia is well known: from writers to scientists, they perished in droves.”

    The Terrors

  • “Some time within the next year a pro-Hitler reaction within the left-wing intelligentsia is likely enough.”

    The Lion and the Unicorn

  • “Later he was converted to Communism, returned to Russia, and produced his book as a sort of ‘show-up’ of the British intelligentsia from a Marxist standpoint.”

    The Road to Wigan Pier

  • “But the working-class intelligentsia is sharply divisible into two different types.”

    The Road to Wigan Pier

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hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. elite group
  1. élite

hyponyms (2)

Words that are more specific

  1. literati
  1. culturati

same context (24)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. bourgeoisie
  2. populists
  3. ascii
  4. fundamentalists
  1. humanists
  2. superstate
  3. rightwing
  4. bloc
  1. nation-state
  2. historiography
  3. democrat
  4. environmentalism
  1. environmentalist
  2. feminism
  3. evangelicals
  4. separatism
  1. ingovernment
  2. entrepreneurialism
  3. prostatectomy
  4. officialdom
  1. élite
  2. consulate
  3. Protestantism
  4. ideology

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. literati

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Lists

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Comments

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  • kingrat47 There's an connotation to this word of futile oppositionism; I'm not entirely sure I'd use it for most groupings of intellectuals. Dec 9, 2006

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‘intelligentsia’ has been looked up 1640 times, added to 24 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 15.