INTELLECTUALS Synonyms: 36 Similar and Opposite Words

intellectuals

noun

plural of intellectual

as in nerds

a person with strong intellectual interests discovered that in politics a reputation for being an intellectual was regarded as a liability

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Example Sentences

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Recent Examples of intellectuals Not in the esoteric way that speaks to intellectuals and insiders. — Robin Givhan, Vanity Fair, 19 Aug. 2026 Recent developments have made new an old idea that emerged among nineteenth-century intellectuals in tsarist Russia who rebelled against the elite fixation with the West. — Foreign Affairs, 18 Aug. 2026 The out-of-the-way restaurant became an international destination spot, not just for gourmands but for intellectuals, artists, and celebrities including Burt Lancaster, Gerard Depardieu, and Robert De Niro. — Tony Sachs, Forbes.com, 17 Aug. 2026 For some Muslim intellectuals and travelers, Japan’s modernization and its victory over Russia was proof that Asian nations need not be subservient to Europe or abandon their own cultural traditions. — Mimi Hanaoka, The Conversation, 11 Aug. 2026 Born in the Soviet Union in 1974, Beloozerov was raised by his mother Lena and stepfather Nikolai Beloozerov, a Soviet dissident and a mathematician, among a community of intellectuals in southwestern Moscow. — Isabelle Chapman, CNN Money, 10 Aug. 2026 The wartime mood among European and American intellectuals was hopeless, or, rather, in her estimation, helpless. — David Denby, New Yorker, 10 Aug. 2026 Postwar intellectuals used psychoanalytic ideas in a variety of ways, including to discuss race relations and homosexuality. — Livia Gershon, JSTOR Daily, 4 Aug. 2026 This tradition of forceful anti-American sentiment among European intellectuals went into steep decline after the abrupt end of the Cold War in the late Eighties. — Cynthia Zarin, Harpers Magazine, 28 July 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for intellectuals

Noun

But it is designed to be played by everyone (ages 10 and up) — not just econ nerds.

— Greg Rosalsky, NPR, 11 Aug. 2026
The invite said something like technical alignment, and nobody senior goes to those, because that is the part where the nerds work out the pipes.

— Jason Snyder, Forbes.com, 8 Aug. 2026

Definition of nerds

Noun

Fortunately, Green’s film exists — and was not thrown into a little black hole by a bunch of accountants, never to be seen again — and can surely help cure any of the pain its backstory still inflicts on movie fans and Tunes geeks.

— Kate Erbland, IndieWire, 12 Aug. 2026
Funko occupies a massive physical footprint in a far corner of the convention center at SDCC, the annual pop culture festival that attracts over 130,000 fans and geeks from around the world.

— Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 24 July 2026