means The capacity to learn, reason, and apply knowledge — to grasp problems, adapt to new situations, and make sense of the world.

from From Latin intelligentia, 'understanding,' built from intelligere, 'to perceive, comprehend' — itself a fusion of inter ('between') and legere ('to choose, gather, read'). So at its root, intelligence is the act of reading between things, of gathering and choosing meaning from the scattered. The word slipped into English through Old French in the medieval period, and the sense of 'secret information' (as in military intelligence) is a later branch — knowledge gathered, then weaponized.