Word.ws English Dictionary

pseudo-intellectual

pseudo-intellectual is the alternative spelling of pseudointellectual.

Meaning of pseudointellectual

Noun

pseudointellectual (plural pseudointellectuals)

  1. A person who claims proficiency in scholarly or artistic activities while lacking in-depth knowledge or critical understanding.
  2. A person who pretends to be of greater intelligence than they actually are.
    • The telltale sign of a pseudo intellectual is the superficial sprinkling and misuse of terms like "paradigm shift" and name dropping2002 September 3, Cyber Cypher, “The sign of pseudo-intellectual”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet), message-ID <Xns927E5A0D9A8C1ccdenews@130.133.1.4>

See all 3 meanings of pseudointellectual

Forms of pseudo-intellectual

Noun
pluralpseudo-intellectuals
Adjective
comparativemore pseudo-intellectual
superlativemost pseudo-intellectual

Questions about pseudo-intellectual

What is pseudo-intellectual the alternative spelling of?
Pseudo-intellectual is the alternative spelling of pseudointellectual.

Words near pseudo-intellectual in the dictionary

  1. pseudo-haiku
  2. pseudo-histories
  3. pseudo-history
  4. pseudo-innocently
  5. pseudo-inspirational
  6. pseudo-intellectual
  7. pseudo-intellectualism
  8. pseudo-intellectuals
  9. Pseudo-Isidorian
  10. pseudo-isochromatic
  11. pseudo-Jewish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pseudo-intellectual (page history and authors); pseudointellectual (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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Cite this entry: “pseudo-intellectual.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pseudo-intellectual. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.