Dictionary

nous en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /nuːs/ (US)
• (US) audio
• no͞os (US)
• nous (UK)
• /naʊs/ (UK)

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek νοῦς (noûs) or νόος (nóos, “mind”).

Meanings

1. (uncountable) The mind or intellect, faculty for rationality or reason using the necessary common sense or awareness.
   • I feel the will to roam, to learn By test, experience, nous, That fire is hot and ocean deep, And wolves carnivorous. 1900, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, On the Disastrous Spread of Aestheticism in all Classes:
2. (uncountable) The divine reason, regarded as first divine emanation.
3. (uncountable) Common sense; practical intelligence.
   • to demonstrate nous
   • There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originality lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous. 1907 April, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, The Longest Journey, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, part I (Cambridge), page 13:
   • The emerging African elite felt little affection for the wahindi, seen as tight-fisted, snooty and brazenly colour-conscious, but its members knew they needed its business nous. 2009, Michela Wrong, It’s Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle Blower:

Forms

Relateds

noogenesis · horse sense · intuition · good sense · autonoesis · noema · noesis · noetic · noosphere · autonoetic · paranoia · nootropic · noology · metanoia · noocracy

Translations (17)

cs rozum (reason in philosophy) · de Nous (reason in philosophy) · tr akıl (reason in philosophy) · tr us (reason in philosophy) · sv förnuft (reason in philosophy) · tr bellek (reason in philosophy) · bg разум (reason in philosophy) · ru разум (reason in philosophy) · ru смётка (reason in philosophy) · nl nous (reason in philosophy) · hu núsz (reason in philosophy) · cs nús (reason in philosophy) · cs intelekt (reason in philosophy) · tr nous (reason in philosophy) · hu noosz (reason in philosophy) · fr nous (reason in philosophy) · sv nous (reason in philosophy)