logical

logical, analytical, subtle are comparable when they are applied to persons, their minds, their mental habits, or products of their reasoning and mean having or showing skill in thinking or reasoning. They are often used interchangeably or without clear distinction, but it is possible to employ them distinctively and with precision.

Logical may imply the power to think according to the rules of logic and therefore in an orderly fashion; more often, however, it suggests the power to impress others that clearness of thought, soundness of reasoning, and freedom from bias underlie one's arguments, one's decisions, or one's policies

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he had ... the logical as opposed to the intuitive temper. He distrusted emotion for which he could not find a rational basis— Montague

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Keats . . . was a perfectly logical, straightforward, and unprejudiced thinker. His emotions might run away with him; his ideas, never— Lowell

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Analytical stresses the power to simplify either what is complex or complicated (as by separating it into its constituent parts) or what is chaotic or confused (as by reorganization that shows the relation of the details to each other and the whole). In derogatory use it may imply a tendency to multiply subdivisions but in favorable or neutral use it connotes a power to systematize, clarify, and interpret, as distinguished from the power to create or invent

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if a man is being purely analytical ... the thing is then something to be classified, related to other things by cause and effect, or broken down into elements— Pepper

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his mind was analytical rather than constructive— Scudder

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Subtle stresses the power to penetrate below the surface and to perceive fine distinctions and delicate, almost imperceptible, relations

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John Donne . . . one of the most subtle . . . intellects that ever, before or since, expressed itself through the medium of verse— Lowes

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When applied to arguments its use may imply a criticism, such as being hard to follow because of being overrefined

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it is a subtle and urbane, but none the less complacent, begging of all the serious questions in the case— Cohen

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a subtle and intricate book which does not readily yield its full implications— Canad. Forum

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Usually, however, it connotes extraordinary skill in reasoning or in analysis

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that is a point of view which . . . would hardly have escaped the subtle intellect of the Greeks— Dickinson

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the actual facts have required for . . . their interpretation the most subtle speculations of modern science— Justice Holmes

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for subtle, acute analysis they cannot be matched in any earlier period— Muller

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Analogous words: cogent, *valid, sound, telling, convincing, compelling: *clear, lucid, perspicuous: *rational, reasonable: inferential, ratiocinative (see under INFERENCE)

Antonyms: illogical

Contrasted words: intuitive, *instinctive: *irrational, unreasonable: fallacious, sophistical, casuistical (see under FALLACY)