nous

Etymology

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

noun

1. (philosophy) The mind or intellect, reason, both rational and emotional
   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. In Neoplatonism, the divine reason, regarded as first divine emanation.
3. Common sense; practical intelligence.
   There is nothing original in absent-mindedness. True originally lies elsewhere. Really, the lower classes have no nous. 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Uniform edition, Edward Arnold, Part I, I, page 19