sapient
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈseɪ.pi.ənt/
ipa: /ˈseɪ.pi.ənt/
ipa: /ˈsæ-/
Forms: form: more sapient
form: most sapient
Etymology: The adjective is derived from Late Middle English sapient (“learned, wise”), from Old French sapient, or from its etymon Latin sapient-, a stem of sapiēns (“(adjective) discerning, judicious, wise; (noun) wise man, sage”), the present active participle of sapiō (“to have a flavour of, taste like; (figurative) to have good taste; to have discernment or sense; to be prudent, sensible, or wise”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁p-, *sep- (“to taste; to try out”). Doublet of savant.
The noun is derived from the adjective, and also influenced by Latin sapiēns (noun) (see above).
Senses: examples: text: [To Edgar] Come ſit thou here moſt learned Iuſtice / [To the Fool] Thou ſapient ſir ſit here, […]
ref: c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi], signature G3, verso:
text: Spot more delicious then thoſe Gardens feign’d / Or of reviv’d Adonis, or renovvnd / Alcinous, hoſt of old Laertes Son [Odysseus], / Or that, not Myſtic, vvhere the Sapient King [Solomon] / Held dalliance vvith his faire Egyptian Spouſe.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC, signature [Ff4], verso, lines 439–443:
text: What is it but a vain and curious skill, / If sapient Germany must lie deprest, / Beneath the brutal sword?
ref: 1809 November 16, William Wordsworth, “[Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty. Part Second.] Sonnet X.”, in Poems […], volume II, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […], published 1815, →OCLC, page 236:
text: She had five or six cows; but it was observed by her sapient neighbours that she sold more butter every year than other farmers' wives who had twenty.
ref: 1839, “Bewitched Butter (Queen’s County)”, in W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, editor, Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (The Camelot Series), London: Walter Scott, […]; New York, N.Y.: Thomas Whittaker; Toronto, Ont.: W. J. Gage & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, pages 161–162:
text: Another way my sapient Guide conduct me / Forth from the quiet to the air that trembles; / And to a place I come where nothing shines.
ref: 1867, Dante Alighieri, “Canto IV”, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., The Divine Comedy, volume I (Inferno), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC, page 26, lines 149–151:
synonyms: word: astute
word: clairvoyant
word: deep
word: frood
word: grounded
word: judicious
word: oracular
word: perspicacious
word: politic
word: profound
word: prudent
word: quick-witted
word: reasonable
word: sagacious
word: sage
word: sapient
word: sensible
word: wise
word: witful
antonyms: insapient
nonsapient
qualifier: dated except poetic
glosses: Possessing discernment and wisdom; learned, wise.
examples: text: Novv tell me, dignified and ſapient ſir, / My man of morals, nurtur'd in the ſhades / Of Academus, is this falſe or true?
ref: 1785, William Cowper, “Book II. The Time-piece.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson; […], →OCLC, pages 72–73:
text: VVell! but a leſſening of prodigal expences, and the œconomy vvhich has been introduced by the virtuous and ſapient aſſembly, makes amends for the loſſes ſuſtained in the receipt of revenue.
ref: 1790 November, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. […], London: […] J[ames] Dodsley, […], →OCLC, page 337:
text: I think I seem them at their work—these sapient trouble-tombs.
ref: 1833, Elia [pseudonym; Charles Lamb], “Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading”, in The Last Essays of Elia. […], London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 49:
text: Then the group of women at the gate separated with many a sapient comment.
ref: 1887, Hall Caine, chapter XVI, in A Son of Hagar: A Romance of Our Time […], volume II, London: Chatto and Windus, […], →OCLC, 2nd book (The Coil of the Temptation), page 84:
text: A man would blush to say to himself in the darkness of the night the things he stands up on a platform in the garish light of day to stuff into the ears of a multitude whose intelligence he pretends that he esteems. […] Therefore, why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper?
ref: 1889–1890, Henry James, chapter VI, in The Tragic Muse […], volume I, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company […], published 7 June 1890, →OCLC, pages 113–114:
text: In Europe I had been told by sapient academics that there wasn't really any class system in the United States: well, you couldn't prove that by the conditions in California's agribusinesses, or indeed its urban factories.
ref: 2010, Christopher Hitchens, “A Second Identity: On Becoming an (Anglo) American”, in Hitch-22: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Twelve, Grand Central Publishing, →ISBN, page 217:
glosses: Attempting to appear discerning or wise.
glosses: Followed by of: aware or knowledgeable of.
examples: text: When EXPLORATION blazed through space / The first sky-trail to far-flung stars, / And found men, sapient, on Mars, / He gained renown's most honored place.
ref: 1935 February, Bob Olsen, “Who Deserves Credit?”, in T[homas] O’Conor Sloane, editor, Amazing Stories, volume 9, number 10, New York, N.Y.: Teck Publishing Corporation, →OCLC, stanza I, page 81:
text: It was inhabited by a sapient humanoid race, and some of them were civilized enough to put it in Class V, and Colonial Office doctrine on Class V planets was rigid.
ref: 1962 January, H[enry] Beam Piper, “Naudsonce”, in John W[ood] Campbell, editor, Analog Science Fact and Science Fiction, volume 68, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →OCLC, page 9; republished in Federation (An Ace Science Fiction Book), New York, N.Y.: Berkley Publishing Group, December 1983, →ISBN, pages 58–59:
text: Nessus had not spoken mockingly; but Speaker reacted with rage. "What sapient being would not fear such power?"
ref: 1970 October, Larry Niven, “Rosette”, in Ringworld, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published January 1976, →ISBN, page 72:
topics: literature
media
publishing
science-fiction
synonyms: word: sentient
word: intelligent
word: sentient
word: self-aware
word: sapient
antonyms: nonsapient
glosses: Of a lifeform or species: possessing intelligence or a high degree of self-awareness.
topics: anthropology
human-sciences
sciences
glosses: Of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Homo sapiens (modern human beings).
glosses: Having a (good) flavour or taste; sapid.
Derived terms: word: insapient
word: nonsapient
word: sapiently
Related terms: Homo sapiens
insipid
insipience
insipient
sapid
sapience
sapiens
savant
savvy