Word.ws English Dictionary

anti-intellectual

anti-intellectual adjective: hostile to intellectual thinking, methods, or ideas.

Adjective

anti-intellectual (comparative more anti-intellectual, superlative most anti-intellectual)

  1. Hostile to intellectual thinking, methods, or ideas.
    • Near-synonym: philistine
    Synonyms:
    philistine

Noun

anti-intellectual (plural anti-intellectuals)

  1. A person who scorns intellectuals and their views and methods.
    • Near-synonym: philistine
    Synonyms:
    philistine

Synonyms of anti-intellectual

Forms of anti-intellectual

Adjective
comparativemore anti-intellectual
superlativemost anti-intellectual
alternative formantiintellectual
Noun
pluralanti-intellectuals

Origin of anti-intellectual

From anti- + intellectual.

Questions about anti-intellectual

What does anti-intellectual mean?
Anti-intellectual means hostile to intellectual thinking, methods, or ideas.
What part of speech is anti-intellectual?
Anti-intellectual can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near anti-intellectual in the dictionary

  1. anti-inflation
  2. anti-inflationary
  3. anti-institutionalism
  4. anti-institutionalist
  5. anti-institutionalists
  6. anti-intellectual
  7. anti-intellectualism
  8. anti-intellectualist
  9. anti-intellectualists
  10. anti-intellectuals
  11. anti-internationalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: anti-intellectual (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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