nous
nounUK /naʊs/ · US /nuːs/
Etymology Borrowed from Ancient Greek νοῦς (noûs) or νόος (nóos, “mind”).
1
Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences The mind or intellect, reason, both rational and emotional.
- I feel the will to roam, to learn By test, experience, nous, That fire is hot and ocean deep, And wolves carnivorous.1900, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes:
2
The divine reason, regarded as first divine emanation.
3
Common sense; practical intelligence.
- to demonstrate nous
- There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous.1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 13:
1 more example
- The emerging African elite felt little affection for the wahindi, seen as tight-fisted, snooty and brazenly colour-conscious, but its members knew they needed its business nous.2009, Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower:
- Related terms
- autonoesis, autonoetic, metanoia, noema, noesis, noetic, noocracy, noogenesis, noology, noosphere, nootropic, paranoia