Etymology From Middle French intelligent, from Latin intellegēns (“discerning”), present active participle of intellegō (“understand, comprehend”), itself from inter (“between”) + legō (“choose, pick out, read”).
1
Of high or especially quick cognitive capacity, bright.
Anstruther laughed good-naturedly. “[…] I shall take out half a dozen intelligent maistries from our Press and get them to give our villagers instruction when they begin work and when they are in the fields.”1927, F. E. Penny, chapter 5, in Pulling the Strings:
2
Well thought-out, well considered.
The engineer had a very intelligent design proposal for the new car.
The general devised an intelligent strategy for the southern campaign.
3
Characterized by thoughtful interaction.
My girlfriend and I had an intelligent conversation.
4
Having at least a similar level of brain power to humankind.
The hunt for extraterrestrial intelligent life continues.
5
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences Having an environment-sensing automatically-invoked built-in computer capability.
Etymology Partly from Russian интеллиге́нт (intelligént) and partly from the adjective.
1
A member of the intelligentsia; an intelligent person.
Now, as all intelligents are doomed to pass probationary states, it is highly probable that many intelligents, long antecedent to the foundation of our world, may have tarnished their innocence; or worse, many may have by disobedience fallen.1832, The Comparative Coincidence of Reason and Scripture, volume II, London: J[ohn] Hatchard and Son, […], page 253:
Like many Russian intelligents, the Merežkovskijs, together with Filosofov and the young student Vladimir Zlobin, fled from Russia in 1919.1972, Olga Matich, Paradox in the Religious Poetry of Zinaida Gippius, Wilhelm Fink, →ISBN, page 30:
2 more examples
But if you fall away from your faith, as many intelligents have fallen away, then you will no longer be Russia or Holy Rus’, but a rabble of all kinds of other faiths who wish to destroy one another.2000, Nadieszda Kizenko, A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People, The Pennsylvania State University Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 248:
Many Russian intelligents, in particular scientists, that already in tsarist times were “infected” by liberal and even socialist ideas found in the revolution and the societal structure that followed, with all its horrible features, positive sides.2011, Evgenii L’vovich Feinberg, translated by Andrei Vladimirovich Leonidov, Physicists: Epoch and Personalities (History of Modern Physical Sciences; 4), World Scientific, →ISBN, page 43: