intellective, a. and n.
(ɪntɪˈlɛktɪv)
[ad. late L. intellectīv-us (Augustine, Boethius), f. intellect-, ppl. stem of intellegĕre (see intelligent) + -ive. Cf. F. intellectif (13th c.), perh. the immed. source.]
A. adj.
1. Having the faculty of understanding; possessed of intellect. Applied, after Aristotle, to one of the parts of the soul (ψυχή).
| c 1480 Henryson Orpheus & Eurydice 428 The pairte intelletyfe Off mans saule. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xxii, Beastes, with soules [printed fowles] sensatiue, And man also, with soule intellectyue. 1643 R. O. Man's Mort. iii. 10 Aristotle [divides the Soul] into vegetative, sensetive, motive, appetitive, intellective. 1775 Harris Philos. Arrangem. Wks. (1841) 280 A being intellective and rational. 1843 Mill Logic iii. v. (1856) I. 394 note, The Greek philosophers acknowledged several kinds of ψυχή, the nutritive, the sensitive, and the intellective. 1873 M. Arnold Lit. & Dogma 401 So far as our being is æsthetic and intellective. |
† 2. Characterized by a high degree of understanding; intelligent: = intellectual A. 3 b.
| 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. (Percy Soc.) 43 So famous poetes did us endoctrine Of the ryght way for to be intellectyfe. 1599 Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 235 In my iudgment there is not a beast so intellectiue as are these Eliphants. 1632 Lithgow Trav. vi. 284 Made manifest to the intellective Reader. |
3. Of or pertaining to understanding, or the understanding; that is a function or attribute of the intellect; having to do with, or relating to, the intellect: = intellectual A. 1.
| 1477 Earl Rivers (Caxton) Dictes 15 b, She is reputed for dede for she leseth the intellectif lyffe. 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1877) 107 They mortifie the vitall spirits and intellectiue powers. a 1638 Mede Wks. (1672) i. Dæmoniacks 29 From some weakness of the Brain or Intellective faculty. 1745 J. Mason Self-Knowl. iii. x. (1853) 223 Strengthening the intellective and reflective Faculties. c 1826 Coleridge Rem. (1836) III. 38 Confine the term reason to the highest intellective power. 1837 Blackw. Mag. XLI. 258 We now proceed to consider the act of our Intellective Faculty, in the most distinguished and complex operation which our mind performs, namely, in reasoning. |
† 4. Apprehensible by the intellect alone (not by the senses): = intellectible b. Obs.
| 1644 Milton Educ. Wks. (1847) 99/1 The most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics. 1656 Hobbes Lib., Necess. & Chance (1841) 107 The knowledge of vision, (which doth not produce the intellective objects, no more than the sensitive vision doth produce the sensible objects). |
† b. Gram. Of a noun: Denoting something apprehensible only by the intellect; ‘abstract’.
| 1823 Monthly Mag. LVI. 302 Though all intellective nouns are certainly appellative, it does not necessarily follow that we are without other appellatives. |
† B. n. Obs. rare.
1. Intellective faculty; intellect, understanding.
| 1560 Rolland Crt. Venus i. 71 Sa far as I can efter my Fantasie, I will yow schaw be my Intellectiue, How thay war cled. |
2. Gram. An abstract noun: see A. 4 b.
| 1823 Monthly Mag. LVI. 300 Intellectives, the names of subjects contemplated solely by the mind..as of mental emotions, affections, and qualities, not regarded with substances..Grammarians have called them abstract nouns. |