Dianoetic
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Pertaining to reason or thinking; intellectual.
"The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout — Haw! — so."
- 1 proceeding to a conclusion by reason or argument rather than intuition wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The bitter laugh laughs at that which is not good, it is the ethical laugh. The hollow laugh laughs at that which is not true, it is the intellectual laugh. Not good! Not true! Well well. But the mirthless laugh is the dianoetic laugh, down the snout — Haw! — so."
Etymology
From Ancient Greek διανοητικός (dianoētikós, “pertaining to thinking”), from διανοητός (dianoētós), verbal adjective of διανοέομαι (dianoéomai, “to think”), from δια- (dia-, “through”) + νοέω (noéō, “to think, suppose”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.