anti-intellectual 1 of 2

Definition of anti-intellectualnext

anti-intellectual

2 of 2

noun

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of anti-intellectual
Adjective
Its popularity is improbable by virtue of its unapologetic intellectualism, increasingly alien in a highly anti-intellectual era. Nicholas Quah, Vulture, 15 Jan. 2026 In the year 2505, protagonist Joe Bauers wakes up from hibernation to discover an America dominated by corporations and led by profoundly anti-science and anti-intellectual politicians. Literary Hub, 7 Jan. 2026 If that — and a title font that echoes Woody Allen’s go-to choice of white Windsor Light Condensed over a black background — sets anti-intellectual alarm bells ringing, then this might not be the film for you. Damon Wise, Deadline, 29 Aug. 2025 Conservative faculty are almost impossible to find at Harvard, and that absence has created a warped, often anti-intellectual, climate on campus. Samuel J. Abrams, National Review, 19 July 2025 The administration in Washington has seized on this time to advance an agenda that is decidedly anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-immigrant, and even anti-democracy. David Rosowsky, Forbes.com, 13 June 2025 This approach serves as a powerful contrast to any hollow, anti-intellectual and culturally bankrupt tyranny. Peter Nguyen, The Conversation, 30 Apr. 2025 But the Library’s decline had begun much earlier, starting with anti-intellectual purges by Ptolemy VIII that predated even the first fire. Hannah Edgar, ARTnews.com, 27 Feb. 2025 Who will be the next university president forced to resign or be fired because of a pro-Palestinian campus protest or because of a linguistic trap set by anti-intellectual members of Congress who demand fealty of all students and faculty in support of Israel’s aggressive bombing of Gaza? Chicago Tribune, 30 Dec. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for anti-intellectual
Adjective
  • In Cherkashin, Nash Sovremennik presented a model genealogy as well as a model Pushkin scholar: a righteous, passionate, nonintellectual man of the people.
    Kathleen Parthé, The New York Review of Books, 18 Aug. 2022
  • Such thumbnail indictments of the nonintellectual masses seemed to stem from Hofstadter’s own mounting sense of political and cultural homelessness in the postwar world.
    Chris Lehmann, The New Republic, 16 Apr. 2020
Adjective
  • Additionally, data released by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics in September revealed that nearly half of the country’s youth population, aged 18 to 30, is unemployed, uneducated, or lacking training.
    Nimi Princewill, CNN Money, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Impeach this uneducated traitor to our values!
    Voice of the People, New York Daily News, 3 Jan. 2026
Noun
  • Executives at NBCUniversal frame Bravo as a brand that represents a particular type of lowbrow-highbrow reality TV, and that even if the channel vanished, the brand could live on.
    Alex Weprin, HollywoodReporter, 9 Jan. 2026
  • That balance of high- and lowbrow is absent in The Abandons.
    Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 5 Dec. 2025
Adjective
  • We’d be laughed at and called ignorant boors!
    Voice of the People, New York Daily News, 24 Jan. 2026
  • Dunk isn’t ignorant of what doing the right thing could cost him.
    Ben Travers, IndieWire, 13 Jan. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Anti-intellectual.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/anti-intellectual. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

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