sagacity
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Etymology
From French sagacité, from Latin sagācitās (“sagaciousness”), from sagāx (“of quick perception, acute, sagacious”), from sāgiō (“I perceive by the senses”). Equivalent to sagac(ious) + -ity.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /səˈɡæsəti/, /səˈɡæsɪti/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Noun
sagacity (usually uncountable, plural sagacities)
- The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions; the quality of being perceptive, astute or insightful.
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 15, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
- Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even your sagacity, to discover the name of your admirer.
- 1904, M. P. Shiel, The Evil That Men Do, London: Ward, Lock & Co., Chapter:
- Immediately after the meal, when he was alone again, he set to work to examine Drayton’s papers, of which there lay quite a mass on the table near him and, leaning toward the lamp on his elbow, he weighed the meaning of each with a certain sideward sagacity of gaze, a sagacity that smiled in its self-sureness.
Swiss Family Robinson- "....near the mouth of a creek, towards which all our geese and ducks betook themselves; and I, relying on their sagacity, followed in the same course."
- Synonyms: sagaciousness, wisdom See Thesaurus:wisdom
- (obsolete) Keen sense of smell.
- 1607, Edward Topsell, The History of Four-footed Beasts, Serpents, and Insects, London: G. Sawbridge et al., published 1658, page 352:
- […] this Beast [the Ichneumon] is not only enemy to the Crocodile and Asp, but also to their Egs, which she hunteth out by the sagacity of her nose, and so destroyeth them […]
Synonyms
- See Thesaurus:wisdom
Related terms
Translations
quality of being sage
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Further reading
- “sagacity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “sagacity”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “sagacity”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
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