sapient
pronunciation
How to pronounce sapient in British English:
UK [ˈseɪpiənt]
How to pronounce sapient in American English:
US [ˈsepiənt]
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- Adjective:
- acutely insightful and wise
Word Origin
- sapient
- sapient: [15] Like English taste, Latin sapere combined the notions of ‘appreciating flavour’ and ‘fine discrimination’, and hence meant both ‘taste’ and ‘be wise’. In the former sense it has given English savour and savoury, while the latter has fed through into English in its present participial form as sapient. It is also the source of Spanish saber ‘know’, which via a West African pidgin has given English the slang term savvy ‘understand’ [18], and French savoir ‘know’, as in English savoir-faire [19].=> savour, savoury
- sapient (adj.)
- "wise," late 15c. (early 15c. as a surname), from Old French sapient, from Latin sapientem (nominative sapiens), present participle of sapere "to taste, have taste, be wise," from PIE root *sep- (1) "to taste, perceive" (cognates: Old Saxon an-sebban "to perceive, remark," Old High German antseffen, Old English sefa "mind, understanding, insight").
Example
- 1. It was sapient of him to do that .
- 2. Even the sapient mr brown does not venture a guess .
- 3. The sapient man used his sagacity in the vertical commercial device .
- 4. Those animals are quite sapient .
- 5. The sapient man used his sagacity in the perpendicular commercial device .