intelligible, a. (n.)
(ɪnˈtɛlɪdʒɪb(ə)l)
[f. L. intellegi-, intelligibil-is, f. intellegĕre to understand + -ible.]
† 1. Capable of understanding; able to understand; intelligent. Obs.
| 1382 Wyclif Wisd. vii. 23 The spirit of vnderstonding..alle thingus beholdende, and that taketh alle intelligible spiritis [1388 able to vndurstonde: Vulg. intelligibiles]. 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. i. xii, He must enclyne..to determine, And set his hert to be intelligible. a 1613 Overbury A Wife, etc. (1638) 124 A meere Scholer is an intelligible Asse. 1669 Gale Crt. Gentiles i. iii. iii. 38 Plato supposeth the Universe..a living intelligible creature. 1744 in G. Sheldon Hist. Deerfield (Mass.) (1895) I. 535 A very Intellegable man about thirty years of age. 1777 E. Badlam in New Eng. Hist. & Gen. Reg. (1848) II. 49 The Mohawks are the most intelligible, as they live among the English in Caughnawaga. |
2. Capable of being understood; that may be apprehended by the intellect; comprehensible.
| 1509 Hawes Past. Pleas. xliii. (Percy Soc.) 211 Whose fame renowmed is ful openly..In flamynge tongues to be intellygyble. 1549 Compl. Scot. To Rdr. 16, I hef vsit domestic scottis langage, maist intelligibil for the vlgare pepil. a 1610 Healey Theophrastus (1636) To Rdr., The hardest wordes are made intelligiblest. 1732 Berkeley Alciphr. iii. §8 What you say now is very intelligible. 1754 Sherlock Disc. (1759) I. i. 58 A Rule of Action must be plain and intelligible. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 194 The aim of our institutions is easily intelligible to any one. |
b. Of a person in reference to his words.
| 1655 Fuller Ch. Hist. ii. ii. §73 Aidan, who naturally spoke Irish, was not intelligible of his English Congregation. 1841 D'Israeli Amen. Lit. (1867) 105 Calvin deemed that to render the people intelligent their instructor should be intelligible. Mod. He spoke so fast as to be hardly intelligible. He is not a very intelligible writer. |
3. Philos. Capable of being apprehended only by the understanding (not by the senses); objective to intellect. (Opp. to sensible.) (Cf. intellectible.)
| 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. ii. ii. (Add. MS. 27944), An aungel, by resoun of þe spiritualte of his substaunce perceyueþ in hymself al fourmes intelligibil. 1534 More Treat. on Passion Wks. 1344/1 The sanctifying of the misticall sacrifice, and the translacion or chaunging of it from thynges sensible to thynges intelligible. 1638 F. Junius Paint. of Ancients 18 Our mind..maketh up the conceivable or intelligible things out of the sensible. 1701 Norris Ideal World i. i. 12 When we say the Intelligible world, the meaning is..a world of a nature purely spiritual and intellectual, and such as is not sensible, but intelligible only. 1856 Vaughan Mystics (1860) I. 54 The presumption of those who place sense above intelligence—who think that they can storm the Intelligible by the Sensible. |
B. n. That which is intelligible; an object of intellect or understanding; spec. in Philos. (see A. 3).
| 1601 Gill Trinity in Sacr. Philos. (1625) 218 An Infinite intelligible, cannot be conceived of an Infinite intelligent, but by an Infinite action of the understanding. 1659 Stanley Hist. Philos. III. ii. 118 The philosophy which is of incorporealls, and intelligibles, and immaterialls, and eternalls..is firmly established. 1681–6 J. Scott Chr. Life (1747) III. 634 This divine Word..is itself the Image of God, the most ancient of all Intelligibles, and next to the most High. 1788 T. Taylor Proclus I. 44 The ancient theologists..affirmed that the soul was of a certain middle nature and condition between intelligibles and sensibles. 1847 Lewes Hist. Philos. (1867) I. 23 Draw off the mind from Sensible things and conduct them to Intelligibles. |