• sapient •
Printable Version Pronunciation: say-pee-ênt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: (Poetic) Wise, intelligent; aware, conscious
Notes: Biologically, we are all sapient to the extent we belong to the species homo sapiens "wise man(kind)". However, some moments of our history bring that sapience into question. Which reminds me, the adverb of today's word is sapiently and the noun, sapience.
In Play: Today's Good Word substitutes for wise when you are not sure if you want everyone to understand you: "Marjorie followed the sapient advice of her mother and fell particularly in love with a rich man." However, its relative rarity these days has led it to a generally more facetious service: "Our sapient leaders have brought us to the point where foreign powers are allowed to control of our ports."
Word History: Apparently our ancestors associated wisdom with taste for today's Good Word wended its way down to us from Latin sapien(t)s, the present participle of sapere "to taste, to be wise". This makes homo sapiens a bit ambiguous between "men of wisdom" and "men of taste". Insipid "tasteless" is the negation of sapid "having taste". Both are based on the same Latin verb. (Today we thank Katy Brezger, a woman who speaks with both taste and wisdom in our Alpha Agora, for suggesting this word.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!
