intelligence
noun
Simple meaning
The capacity of mind.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihntehluhjuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪnˈtɛlədʒəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
chiefly uncountable
The capacity of mind, especially to understand principles, truths, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge, and apply it to practice; the ability to comprehend and learn; the ability to process sentient experience to generate true beliefs with a justified degree of confidence.
chiefly uncountable
The quality of making use or having made use of such capacities: depth of understanding, mental quickness.
Secret information about an enemy (or potential enemy)
“We sent out planes to gather intelligence on their radar coverage.”
Information about recent and important events
The operation of gathering information about an enemy
countable
An entity that has such capacities.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The capacity of mind, especially to understand principles, truths, facts or meanings, acquire knowledge, and apply it to practice; the ability to comprehend and learn; the ability to process sentient experience to generate true beliefs with a justified degree of confidence.
Used this way, intelligence is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use intelligence
- “We sent out planes to gather intelligence on their radar coverage.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Well articulated or enunciated, and loud enough to be heard distinctly.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Secret information about an enemy (or potential enemy).
A person secretly employed in espionage for a government.
The operation of gathering information about an enemy.
A measure of a person's intelligence as indicated by an intelligence test.
A unit responsible for gathering and interpreting information about an enemy.
A psychometric test of intelligence.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.