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Find a modern word—or search sideways through reconstructed roots, historical forms, meanings, languages, scholars, sources, claims, disputes, and witnesses.
013
MODERN ENTRY POINTS
WORD DOSSIERS
nounexact headword
intelligence
Capacity for understanding, information, or the organizations that gather it; inherited through French from Latin intelligentia.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗nouncontrarian claim
intellect
The power or capacity of knowing and reasoning, inherited from Latin intellectus and intellegere.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗adjectivecontrarian claim
intelligent
Having or showing understanding, judgment, or mental capacity; borrowed from the Latin participle of intellegere.
OPEN THE FULL LINEAGE ↗022
ATTESTED / RECONSTRUCTED / BOUNDARY
HISTORICAL FORMS
036
WHERE INTERPRETATION IS TESTED
CLAIMS & DISPUTES
SCHOLARLY DISPUTES / 3
openprobableexact word
Does intelligence literally mean “choosing between”?
The Latin form is traditionally analyzed through inter- and legere, and selection or discernment informs the semantic history. A literal gloss is not a complete account of cognition.
resolvedestablishedexact word
How did intelligence become secret information?
The word already meant understanding and knowledge; news and strategic information developed from that information sense, later naming the services that gather it.
resolvedestablishedposition text
Was English intelligent formed from English intelligence?
No. The adjective is borrowed from Latin intelligent-, intelligens; the English noun intelligence follows its own abstract-noun transmission through French and Latin intelligentia.
CONTRARIAN TRUTHS / 3
RANK 214GRADE A−exact ranked word
Intelligence belongs to the gather-and-select family.
Latin morphology links discernment to inter- plus legere—but the root is not a theory of mind.
RANK 3GRADE Aranked reveal
Robot named forced labor before machinery.
The machine word begins in Czech robota: compulsory labor, corvée, or drudgery.
RANK 165GRADE Acontrarian claim
Intelligent did not descend from English intelligence.
English intelligent is borrowed from a Latin present participle. Intelligence follows a sibling French and Latin abstract-noun route; the words meet deeper than modern English.
041
BOOKS / DICTIONARIES / ARTICLES / DATABASES
SOURCES
052
FIRST USES & HISTORICAL OBJECTS
ATTESTATION WITNESSES
DIRECTLY INSPECTEDprinted book
The PAPER-OFFICE entry in John Harris’s Lexicon technicum includes Letters of Intelligence among official papers communicated to the King’s Council.
intelligence / intelligence / 1704
Lexicon technicum: or, an universal English dictionary of arts and sciencesexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗SOURCE REPORTEDlexicographic first use
Middle English lexical record
intelligence / intelligence / 14th century
Intelligence — Word Historyexact attested form / OPEN RECORD ↗06
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