Intellectual and intelligent

Question

Hello. Can anyone please help me?

Is it normal to use "intellectual" for a machine or an animal?

Example: intellectual machine, intellectual animal.

Dose "intelligent" sound more appropriate for a machine or an animal?

I understand like this

intellectual person: He has a master degree with a computer skill.

intelligent person: He is good at understanding something since he was a kid.

Thank you!

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

No. You misunderstand 'intellectual', which is used to mean 'not only having a high degree of understanding, but also a capacity and taste for the higher forms of knowledge' (from Random House dictionary). All of your examples call for intelligent:

intelligent machine, intelligent animal.

intelligent person: He has a master degree with a computer skill.

intelligent person: He is good at understanding something since he was a kid.

Intellectual person:

But it is hard to escape the conclusion that while these members of the intellectual elite want the government to serve the interests of such people first and foremost, they do not want those people to hold the levers of power. They see lower-middle-class populists like Palin and their supporters as profoundly ill-suited for governance, because they lack the accoutrements required for its employment--especially in foreign policy, which, even more than domestic affairs, is thought to be an intellectual exercise. It is for this reason that Barack Obama, who actually has far less experience in executive governance than Palin, was not dismissed as unprepared for the presidency. Palin may have been elected governor of Alaska, but his peers in Cambridge had elected Obama editor of the Harvard Law Review. He is thoroughly fluent in the parlance of the college town, and in the eyes of the new American elite, Washington is the ultimate college town.

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you! It was very helpful!

Intellectual and intelligent

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