Word.ws English Dictionary

subintellectual

subintellectual adjective: below the level of the intellect.

Adjective

subintellectual (comparative more subintellectual, superlative most subintellectual)

  1. Below the level of the intellect.
    • Even if, later on, she was able to examine and analyze certain aspects of popular culture (as in “Notes on Camp,” 1964), she could undertake such a thing only in service to a higher goal — she was immune to subintellectual cultural pleasures.2009 February 1, Luc Sante, “Sontag: The Precocious Years”, in New York Times

Noun

subintellectual (plural subintellectuals)

  1. A person who is less intelligent than an intellectual.

Forms of subintellectual

Adjective
comparativemore subintellectual
superlativemost subintellectual
Noun
pluralsubintellectuals

Origin of subintellectual

From sub- + intellectual.

Questions about subintellectual

What does subintellectual mean?
Subintellectual means below the level of the intellect.
What part of speech is subintellectual?
Subintellectual can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near subintellectual in the dictionary

  1. subinstances
  2. subinstruction
  3. subinstructions
  4. subinsular
  5. subintegumental
  6. subintellectual
  7. subintellectuals
  8. subintelligence
  9. subintelligitur
  10. subintelligiturs
  11. subintent

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: subintellectual (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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