Word.ws English Dictionary

public intellectuals

public intellectuals is the plural of public intellectual.

Meaning of public intellectual

Noun

public intellectual (plural public intellectuals)

  1. (idiomatic) A well-known, intelligent, learned person whose written works and other social and cultural contributions are recognized not only by academic audiences and readers, but also by many members of society in general.
    • "I have always taken the role of public intellectual very, very seriously," said Mark Crispin Miller, 51, a professor of media ecology at New York University. "A public intellectual is someone who engages in intellectual pursuits, airs intellectual concerns in a way the broad, literate public can...2001 June 13, Chris Hedges, “Public Lives: Watching Bush's Language, and Television”, in New York Times, retrieved 24 Oct 2012

Questions about public intellectuals

What is public intellectuals the plural of?
Public intellectuals is the plural of public intellectual.

Words near public intellectuals in the dictionary

  1. public image
  2. public images
  3. public indecency
  4. public information officer
  5. public intellectual
  6. public intellectuals
  7. public interest
  8. public international law
  9. public intoxication
  10. public Ivies
  11. public Ivy

Source and license

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