public intellectual
3
6.8
- noun
- /ˈpʌblɪk ɪnˈtɛlɪktʃuəl/
- We proudly welcome back to Harvard one of the world's most engaged and engaging public intellectuals, Fareed Zakaria.
- public intellectuals and scholars
- public intellectuals and journalists
- role of the public intellectual
Loading YouTube…
Watch on YouTubeYou can write op eds that stir, that stir debate, sort of bringing your life as a public intellectual forward.
- You can write op eds that stir, that stir debate, sort of bringing your life as a public intellectual forward.
- And I'm sure this wasn't your lived experience, but it it seems like you went from from kind of public intellectual to happiness guru almost overnight.
- And it's, it's, it feels great to finally be able to converge my music identity and my public intellectual identity.
- And that's why I get upset, by the way, when I see contemporary public intellectuals exactly committing those types of deep moral transgressions, right?
- I'm a former college professor who has been cast into the role of a public intellectual by bizarre events at my college.
Examples
-
As a public intellectual and prophet to politicians, the socialist preacher, Reinhold Niebuhr, taught "Applied Theology."
Academic text (2000) -
How are you dealing with this seemingly inevitable slide toward becoming a public intellectual?
Academic text (2016) -
I'm a former college professor who has been cast into the role of a public intellectual by bizarre events at my college.
-
And it's, it's, it feels great to finally be able to converge my music identity and my public intellectual identity.
-
He's an Indian public intellectual and he really, really explains that in that book.
-
Let us also be fair to postcolonial public intellectuals.
Academic text (2008) -
You're both world class debaters, even public intellectuals, if I can say that.
-
The Council includes four scientists and thirteen physicians, philosophers, law professors, and public intellectuals.
Academic text (2003) -
Even more troubling is the lack of global knowledge among scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals who write about globalization and global history.
Academic text (2000) -
Fareed Zakaria is known as a prominent public intellectual who often engages in discussions about international affairs.
Synonyms
1
7.4
A well-known person who writes or speaks about important public issues
An expert who gives public advice or opinions on a subject
How Publicly Active
683
2.3
- Literature
200
3.5
3
6.8
77
3.9
635
2.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the constituents: 'public' (open to or aimed at the general public) modifies 'intellectual' (an educated thinker), yielding an educated person who speaks or writes for public discourse. This follows a regular adjective+noun composition and is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both words will very likely infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Public intellectual comes from the image of a scholar stepping out of the university to speak in newspapers, on the radio, or at public meetings. A public intellectual is literally an intellectual who talks to the public, so today it means a scholar or writer who shares 'ideas' and joins public 'debate' outside academia.