Intelligence, n.
Etymology: [F. intelligence, L. intelligentia, intellegentia. See Intelligent.]
1. The act or state of knowing; the exercise of the understanding.
2. The capacity to know or understand; readiness of comprehension; the intellect, as a gift or an endowment. And dimmed with darkness their intelligence. Spenser.
3. Information communicated; news; notice; advice. Intelligence is given where you are hid. Shak.
4. Acquaintance; intercourse; familiarity. [Obs.] He lived rather in a fair intelligence than any friendship with the favorites. Clarendon.
3 more senses
5. Knowledge imparted or acquired, whether by study, research, or experience; general information. I write as he that none intelligence Of meters hath, nCourt of Love.
6. An intelligent being or spirit; -- generally applied to pure spirits; as, a created intelligence. Milton. The great Intelligences fair That range above our mortal state, In circle round the blessed gate, Received and gave him welcome there. Tennyson. Intelligence office, an office where information may be obtained, particularly respecting servants to be hired.
Syn. -- Understanding; intellect; instruction; advice; notice; notification; news; information; report.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for intelligence; he lists it under knowledge, mind.
Where he writes about it:
Mind, in a general sense, includes all the powers of sentient being apart from the physical factors in bodily faculties and activities; in a limited sense, mind is nearly synonymous with intellect, but includes disposition, or the tendency toward action, as appears in the phrase "to have a mind to work." As the seat of mental activity, brain (colloquially brains) is often used as a synonym for mind, intellect, intelligence. — from mind