Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To furnish a rational structure or meaning for.
- transitive verb To avoid psychological insight into (an emotional problem) by performing an intellectual analysis.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To treat or reason upon in an intellectual manner.
- To inform or endow with intellect; cause to become intellectual; develop the intellect or intellectuality of.
- To give or attribute an intellectual or ideal character or aspect to; idealize.
- Also spelled
intellectualise .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To treat in an intellectual manner; to discuss intellectually; to reduce to intellectual form; to express intellectually; to idealize.
- transitive verb To endow with intellect; to bestow intellectual qualities upon; to cause to become intellectual.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb To treat in an
intellectual manner; to discuss or express intellectually. - verb To
endow withintellect ; to bestow intellectual qualities upon; to cause to become intellectual. - verb US (
transitive ) to find a seeminglyrational explanation for something:
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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No true conservative know-nothing would use the word "intellectualize"!
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The worst way one can teach the Holocaust to kids this young is to, as you put it, "intellectualize" it.
Six million what Roger Sutton 2007
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In fact, "intellectualize" does appear to be a word meaning "to furnish a rational structure or meaning for," so I guess he's saying only liberals would judge "most liberal Senator" based on a rational meaning of "liberal."
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I look at him, and I think deborah is right that he would be confused and frightened if you tried to "intellectualize" the holocaust for him.
Six million what Roger Sutton 2007
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Ms. Quinlan: She's able to intellectualize the accent and speak about it in ways other people might not.
You Tawkin' to New Yawk? Lana Bortolot 2011
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"You start off hearing one thing, but when you begin to give up listening to one certain aspect of it or trying to intellectualize it, it opens up and you begin to float."
Experiments With the Solstice in a SoHo Loft Andy Battaglia 2011
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She could intellectualize romantic love, but not feel it.
Amaryllis in Blueberry Christina Meldrum 2011
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Are we so desperate to intellectualize that all nouns must be verbed?
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I cannot over emphasize, don't over intellectualize your African battery.
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I cannot over emphasize, don't over intellectualize your African battery.
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