Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Philosophy Reason and knowledge as opposed to sense perception.
- n. Philosophy The rational part of the individual human soul.
- n. Philosophy The principle of the cosmic mind or soul responsible for the rational order of the cosmos.
- n. Philosophy In Stoicism, the equivalent of Logos.
- n. Philosophy In Neo-Platonism, the image of the absolute good, containing the cosmos of intelligible beings.
- n. Chiefly British Good sense; shrewdness: "Hillela had the nous to take up with the General when he was on the up-and-up again” ( Nadine Gordimer).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In Platonism and the Neoplatonic philosophy, reason, the highest kind of thought; especially, that reason which made the world (though other elements contributed to it). The later Neoplatonists made the nous a kind of living being.
- n. Hence Wit; cleverness; smartness.
Wiktionary
- n. philosophy The mind or intellect, reason, both rational and emotional
- n. In neoplatonism, the divine reason, regarded as first divine emanation.
- n. Common sense; practical intelligence.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Intellect; understanding; talent; -- used humorously.
- n. (Philos.) The reason; the highest intellect; God regarded as the World Reason.
WordNet 3.0
- n. common sense
- n. that which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason
Etymologies
- From Ancient Greek νοῦς (nous) or νόος (noös, "mind"). (Wiktionary)
- Greek. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Montluc -- "_avant nous ces envies ont regne_, _et regneront encore apres nous_, _si Dieu ne nous voulait tous refondre_.”
Sir Thomas More, or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society
“Nous _ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes_, et la raison nous défend de chercher à le connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_, qu’_elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce quelles sont par rapport à nous_, puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action.”
A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive (Vol. 1 of 2)
“Nous _ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en elles-mêmes_, et la raison nous défend de chercher à le connaître: mais il est bien évident _à priori_, qu’_elles ne sont pas en elles-mêmes ce qu’elles sont par rapport à nous_, puisque la présence du sujet modifie nécessairement leur action.”
“The term nous, or mind, was commonly given to this second person, but it was said that this nous was the word or reason of the first person.”
“In a 1999 essay titled “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By Which We Do Not Mean Nous)” (in Greek philosophy the term nous denotes the highest form of rationality), Shulsky and Schmitt, two neocons, argue that Strauss’s idea of hidden meaning “alerts one to the possibility that political life may be closely linked to deception.”
“According to Plotinus, nous is the highest sphere accessible to the human mind and thus the "objective" of contemplation.”
Architecture and Memory: The Renaissance Studioli of Federico da Montefeltro
“It is of all that is comprehended under the word nous, the understanding and the heart, that this vanity is predicated.”
“I am talking about the part of us that grows with spiritual development, called the nous by the ancient Christian fathers, the "psychic being" in Sri Aurobindo's yoga.”
“In Aristotle, phantasia is what comes between aisthesis and nous, that is, the end product of sensation and the start of intellectual activity.”
“For these ` ` infinite, self powerful, and unmixed '' particles are imbued with, and, indeed, themselves constitute, what Anaxagoras terms nous, a word which the modern translator has usually paraphrased as ` ` mind. '”
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume I: The Beginnings of Science
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘nous’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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phrontistery - n
from phrontistery.info
nacarat, nacelle, nacket, nacre, nacreous, naevus, naiant, nail, nainsook, naissant, nanism, nanization and 340 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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i heart words
autarkic, cline, aver, limn, gossamer, ochre, fulminate, twee, augur, mollify, maw, ecumenical and 113 more...
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Joe's list
Fissiparous Weekly Standard Nigeria a fissiparous country 3/2012
fissiparous, inchoate, punctilious, synecdoche, apocryphal, superadd, pedant, pedagogy, astigmatic, inter alia, aphoristically, eponymous and 131 more...
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bintalshamsa's list
My Favorite Words
weltschmerz, perspicacity, idée fixe, invigilator, salubrious, tchotchke, ex nihilo, invidious, malapropism, naïve, sardonic, elide and 1402 more...
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Alles ganz verschieden
Listed various words that have come into my mind. Will edit them at some point - honestly.
dog-gold, shoulderlooker, mr. considering, the pigwoman, stevie is waiting, chingwybodganpwy, thelandscapeisstu..., couchsurfing, cappuccinodrinking, meat-eater, posher, mae rhaid i fi fynd and 581 more...
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List of words to expand my vocabulary
does what it says on the tin, and is severely needed.
indolent, insolent, idly, divulge, tattle, benign, roguish, daintily, idle, dowdy, sordid, wanton and 242 more...
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dbnews
echolalia, indehiscent, lacrimation, librate, syntagmatic, acquiesce, quiddity, accidie, antinomy, cathexis, ersatz, revenant and 93 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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Phrases and words I didn't know
give up the ghost, ninja'd, coal-hole, hotting up, chancer, clave, salaryman, turf accountant, cremains, autoclave, hummingbird mind, gank and 175 more...
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Words of Standing
steed, stool, estancia, stage, stance, staunch, stanch, stanchion, stanza, stative, stator, stay and 180 more...
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"Words, words, words."
abase, abject, abstruse, adjutant, altercation, altruistic, angst, anodyne, anomie, ape, apprehensive, aquiline and 310 more...
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jenna8500's list
flense, innocuous, halcyon, thwart, intransigent, portend, emaciate, nous, pert, sesquipedalian, irreverent, mirth and 21 more...
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football (soccer) jargon
or terms I learned from soccer coverage even if they are not specific to the game
gol olimpico, rabona, catenaccio, shambolic, nous, gormless, libero, enganche, carrilero, Total Voetbal, Die Mannschaft, geste
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arabesque of symbols
Balai (died 460) was a chorepiscopus of Beroera who wrote poetry with a wealth of imagery. Most words here are from Olivier Clement's commentary on the Patristic Era of which Balai is a participant.
epiousios, Didache, epiclesis, amen, "do not forget th..., principaliter, rachamin, pallium, himation, nous, thumos, epithumia and 10 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for nous.
bilby Good to know that behaviour on internet forums is also a problem for Middle Earth. Mar 23, 2013
dailyword Gandalf used this word when he was talking to Thorin after the troll incident. Mar 23, 2013
knitandpurl "The Canavans—they had for decades and centuries brought to the Ox elements that were by turn complicated and simple: occult nous and racy semen."
"Ox Mountain Death Song" by Kevin Barry, in the October 29 & November 5, 2012 issue of the New Yorker, p 106 Oct 31, 2012
jodi nous as common sense in BrE from M Lynne Murphy. Aug 4, 2011