Intelligence Intellect in Chinese / Japanese...

These two characters mean intelligence or intelligent.

The first character means wisdom, intellect, or knowledge.

The second means ability, talent, skill, capacity, capable, able, and can even mean competent.

Together, 知能 can mean “capacity for wisdom,” “useful knowledge,” or even “mental power.” Obviously, this translates more clearly into English as “intelligence.”

Note: This is not the same word used to mean “military intelligence.” See our other entry for that.

In modern Japan, they tend to use a version of the first character without the bottom radical. If your audience for this artwork is Japanese, please click on the Kanji to the right instead of the button above.

智 is the simplest way to write wisdom in Chinese, Korean Hanja, and Japanese Kanji.

Being a single character, the wisdom meaning is open to interpretation, and can also mean intellect, knowledge or reason, resourcefulness, or wit.

智 is also one of the five tenets of Confucius.

智 is sometimes included in the Bushido code but is usually not considered part of the seven key concepts of the code.

See our Wisdom in Chinese, Japanese and Korean page for more wisdom-related calligraphy.

See Also:  Learn From Wisdom | Confucius

意 is the Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and old Korean Hanja for an idea, intention, meaning, thought, wish, desire, intention, feelings, and thoughts.

In Buddhism, this is the last of the six means of perception (the others are sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch, and this one represents the mind). It does not literally mean “mind,” but rather something more like mental powers, intellect, intelligence, faculty of thought, or understanding in the Buddhist context.