gelehrte

Gelehrte is a German noun meaning "scholars" or "the learned." It denotes people who engage in scholarly activity and are part of universities, libraries, or learned societies. The term can refer to a group or to an individual, depending on gender and number; the masculine singular is Gelehrter, the feminine singular Gelehrte, and a group is commonly referred to as die Gelehrten in standard usage.

Historically, Gelehrte described the educated class within a society, often contrasted with laypeople. In German-language discourse, it is closely associated with the culture of Wissenschaft and the exchange of ideas across universities, academies, and salons, especially in the early modern and Enlightenment periods.

In Enlightenment-era and subsequent scholarship, the concept of a community of scholars is sometimes discussed under the label Gelehrtenrepublik or Republik der Gelehrten, referring to networks of scholars who communicated across national borders and disciplines.

In contemporary German, Gelehrte remains a neutral term used in academic and historical writing to refer to scholars or learned people in general. It appears in discussions of science, humanities, and higher education, and it can also describe specific groups of scholars within a period or institution.