intellegentia

Forms

intellegentia f (genitive intellegentiae); first declension^[1] Also intelligentia.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is from Latin intellegēns (“understanding”) + -ia,^[2] from intellegō (“to understand”).^[3][4] De Vaan takes ⟨intel-legere⟩ as a fairly recent compound with legō² (“to gather”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *lege- and Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to collect”);^[5] cognate with Ancient Greek λέγω (légō, “to gather, count; speak”).^[5] Sidonius already derived it from intellegō.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Terence's Hecyra has it first in the OLD, in the prologue's hope that the audience's intelligence will calm the calamity,^[2] and Varro has it in his Menippean Satires.^[2] Köbler dates it from Cicero.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Cicero uses it often:^[2][6] he defines it as the part of prudence by which the mind sees what is,^[2] and uses it for the faculty of understanding,^[2][3] the degree of understanding of ordinary people,^[2] cleverness,^[2] and an expert's understanding or taste, as in the Verrines, “intelligence, not greed”.^[2] He also makes it an idea or notion, rendering Ancient Greek ἔννοια (énnoia).^[2][7] Ulpian uses it for understanding of a language, and Justin for the art of interpreting dreams.^[2][3][7] Church Latin has knowledge, understanding, intelligence, discernment and judgement.^[8]

Timeline

• 190–159 BC – Terence, of the audience's intelligence.^[2][6]
• 116–27 BC – Varro, of the mind's understanding.^[2][6]
• 81–43 BC – Cicero, as a faculty of the mind and as a notion.^[2][6]
• before 223 AD – Ulpian, of understanding a language.^[2][6]
• c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius derives it from intellegere.^[4][6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The faculty of discerning or understanding, comprehension.^[2][3][1]
2. A degree of understanding.^[2]
3. Intelligence, cleverness.^[2][1]
4. Understanding in a special field, discernment, taste.^[2][7][1]
5. An idea, concept, notion.^[2][7]

Related words

• intellēctus
• intellegēns
• intellegō
• legō²

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b c Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
7. ^ a b c d Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
8. ^ Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson