intelligent vs. smart

Question

Hi all!What's the difference between (intelligent & smart)?Thank you very much!

Feebs11 · Accepted Answer

Smart falls betweeen intelligent and clever

Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason, so intelligent = able to learn and understand things easily

Clever = having or showing the ability to learn and understand things quickly and easily

In usage, smart can mean someone who is quick and clever, or just someone who is intelligent.

He is a smart boy - he learned his times-tables in two days

That's a smart dog. She learns how to do things easily.

ScratchThat · Answer

I think there is a difference of usage between UK English and USA English in this regard. From the USA perspective:

"Smart", "intelligent", and "clever" all mean the same thing: capacity to learn, ability to think abstractly, capability to solve problems, and to be able to do any of those things quickly.

"Smart" is neutral. "Intelligent" is a more sophisticated way of saying "smart".

"Clever" implies deviousness and is sometimes used to praise a smart way of doing something illicit.

"You think you're so clever." (said to a child who was discovered having told a well-crafted lie)

"Clever" is also the most interesting word, in my opinion.

Feebs11 · Answer

You may be right. In the UK you will hear it said (of politicians, generally) "He is really clever, but not particularly intelligent". It indicates the person is fast thinking, but often does not use common sense or reason.

ScratchThat · Answer

That is interesting!   I don't think I've ever heard someone described as "clever, but not intelligent", which seems contradictory to me.  It seems there are indeed shades of meaning in UK English among these three words that do not exist in USA English.

Uthman · Answer

Thank you Feebs11, thank you ScratchThat, it seems there's a difference in usage between British & American English with regard to those words,
British English there is a slight difference, while American English no difference.

Anonymous · Answer

It doesn't matter between UK and US. We may have different slang terms, but proper grammar is almost entirely the same.

Smart can be appiled to many different things, like street smarts or book smarts, intelligence is pretty well kept, and some say you really can't do anything about your intelligence , you had a predisposed IQ when you were born, then depending on your environment it was either nurtured or neglected so you either reached you full potential or you didn't. Higher education will not affect your intelligence, while it may make you smarter in certain subjects, some might also say that you need a certain level of intelligence to get a higher education.

Smart is considered to have a great amount of knowledge. Intelligent is the ability to grasp a concept quickly. Intelligent is the ability to learn rapidly. Smart is having acquired a lot of knowledge, not necessarily quickly. A person can be smart and not particularly intelligent and an intelligent person can be not particularly smart.

Anonymous · Answer

Great explanation!

I would say:

I am intelligent because I study, attend classes and get straight As

but I am not smart because I am not able to apply all that knowledge in real life

Anonymous · Answer

doesn't that mean the politician is clever, fast thinking etc but he does not know how to use this ability well as he lacks knowledge to help him judge, hence he's not intelligent?

Anonymous · Answer

Laiquone says: Intelligence is the ability to be able to learn and figure things out on your own (come to a logical conclusion). Smartness is the ability to recall and apply the things one has learned. Cleverness denotes a witty quick fix/response to something that eluded the thoughts of others at that moment or in the moment, sometimes associated with decietfullness.

Example: Teacher explains the formula to figure out a problem. You connect the dots to understand the formula.
Ex.2: Never seen a stove, touched burning hot stove, felt sensation associated to the word hot. Understood hot.(Intelligence)

Ex.1: End of the semester exam is given; you recalled the formula and figured out a problem never encountered before.
Ex.2: Seen a stove two weeks later with boiling pot of water, betcha didn't touch that stove again!!!
(Smart)

To me the words are totally different but I hear and see them being used interchangeably all the time.
A person can be smart but not that intelligent, and vice versa.
Reading a book can make you smart on a subject, but you wouldn't necessarily know what to do with that knowledge.
You can be smart enough to build a bomb, but it wouldn't be very intelligent to set it to go off in ten seconds if you're within proximity of its blast radius, nor to let that knowledge get into the hands of smart extremists, radicals, thugs, kkk, etc.

Ex.3: Lets give the schematics of the z-bomb to these extremists. (little intelligence).
Extremists wants to pay top dollar for schematics; they might/will hurt innocent people, can't give them that info (intelligent)

Ex.3.2: We gave the extremists those schematics; hindsight, they killed a gazillion people, let's not do that again. (smart)

I think of myself as being somewhat of both and there will never be two beings with the same exact mix of each, there will always be someone smarter, dumber, more intelligent, less intelligent than the other in various ways.

I also think that intelligence is more important than smartness, and the varying degrees of smartness comes with possessing various degrees of intelligence.
In order to be smart in some area, you MUST possess some type of intelligence.

But I do say, there are some dumb, little intelligence azz people in this world! Peace out world... Laiquone 04/26/12 12:26p.

Anonymous · Answer

Laiquone says: Intelligence is the ability to be able to learn and figure things out on your own (come to a logical conclusion) whether quickly or slowly. Smartness is the ability to recall and maybe apply the things one has learned. Cleverness denotes a witty (intelligent and smart) quick fix/response to something that eluded or would have eluded the thoughts of others at that moment or in the moment, sometimes associated with deceitfulness like sly or cunning.
Example: Teacher explains the formula to figure out a problem. You connect the dots to understand the formula.Ex.2: Never seen a stove, touched burning hot stove, felt sensation associated to the word hot. Understood hot.(Intelligence)
Ex.1: End of the semester exam is given; you recalled the formula and figured out a problem never encountered before.Ex.2: Seen a stove two weeks later with boiling pot of water, betcha didn't touch that stove again!!!(Smart)
To me the words are totally different but I hear and see them being used interchangeably all the time.A person can be smart but not that intelligent, and vice versa.Reading a book can make you smart on a subject, but you wouldn't necessarily know what to do with that knowledge.You can be smart enough to build a bomb, but it wouldn't be very intelligent to set it to go off in ten seconds if you're within proximity of its blast radius, nor to let that knowledge get into the hands of smart extremists, radicals, thugs, kkk, etc.
Ex.3: Lets give the schematics of the z-bomb to these extremists. (little intelligence).Extremists wants to pay top dollar for schematics; they might/will hurt innocent people, can't give them that info. (intelligent)
Ex.3.2: We gave the extremists those schematics; hindsight, they killed a gazillion people, let's not do that again. (smart)

I think of myself as being somewhat of both and there will never be two beings with the same exact mix of each, there will always be someone smarter, dumber, more intelligent, less intelligent than the other in various ways.
I also think that intelligence is more important than smartness, and the varying degrees of smartness comes with possessing various degrees of intelligence.In order to be smart in some area, you MUST possess some type of intelligence.
But I do say, there are some dumb, little intelligence having people in this world! Peace out world... Laiquone 04/26/12 2:48p.

intelligent vs. smart

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