(law) an explanation of the fundamental reasons (especially an explanation of the working of some device in terms of laws of nature); "the rationale for capital punishment"; "the principles of internal-combustion engines"
any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; "self-indulgence was his only philosophy"; "my father's philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it"
the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics
of a proposition that is necessarily true independent of fact or experience; "`all spinsters are unmarried' is an analytic proposition"
expressing a grammatical category by using two or more words rather than inflection
using or skilled in using analysis (i.e., separating a whole--intellectual or substantial--into its elemental parts or basic principles); "an analytic experiment"; "an analytic approach"; "a keenly analytic man"; "analytical reasoning"; "an analytical mind"
using or subjected to a methodology using algebra and calculus; "analytic statics"
being or characterized by concepts or their formation; "conceptual discussions"; "the schizophrenic loses ability to abstract or do conceptual thinking"; "sex is a notional category, gender is a grammatical category"
happening or arising or located within some limits or especially surface; "internal organs"; "internal mechanism of a toy"; "internal party maneuvering"
occurring within an institution or community; "intragroup squabbling within the corporation"
an ability to understand the meaning or importance of something (or the knowledge acquired as a result); "how you can do that is beyond my comprehension"; "he was famous for his comprehension of American literature"
the capacity for rational thought or inference or discrimination; "we are told that man is endowed with reason and capable of distinguishing good from evil"
a fact that logically justifies some premise or conclusion; "there is reason to believe he is lying"
an explanation of the cause of some phenomenon; "the reason a steady state was never reached was that the back pressure built up too slowly"
a rational motive for a belief or action; "the reason that war was declared"; "the grounds for their declaration"
think logically; "The children must learn to reason"
decide by reasoning; draw or come to a conclusion; "We reasoned that it was cheaper to rent than to buy a house"
appealing to or using the intellect; "satire is an intellectual weapon"; "intellectual workers engaged in creative literary or artistic or scientific labor"; "has tremendous intellectual sympathy for oppressed people"; "coldly intellectual"; "sort of the intellectual type"; "intellectual literature"
of or associated with or requiring the use of the mind; "intellectual problems"; "the triumph of the rational over the animal side of man"
of or relating to the intellect; "his intellectual career"
a measure of a person's intelligence as indicated by an intelligence test; the ratio of a person's mental age to their chronological age (multiplied by 100)
affected by a disorder of the mind; "a mental patient"; "mental illness"
involving the mind or an intellectual process; "mental images of happy times"; "mental calculations"; "in a terrible mental state"; "mental suffering"; "free from mental defects"
of or relating to the chin- or liplike structure in insects and certain mollusks
of or relating to the mind; "mental powers"; "mental development"; "mental hygiene"