English

Adjective

sapient ‎(comparative more sapient, superlative most sapient)

1. Attempting to appear wise or discerning.
   • 1890, Henry James, The Tragic Muse.

     "... 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?" Nick added, with a smile.

   • 2010, Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22, Atlantic 2011, p. 217:

     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.

2. (dated) Possessing wisdom and discernment; wise, learned.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act III, Scene 6,

     [To Edgar] Come, sit thou here, most learned justicer. / [To the Fool] Thou, sapient sir, sit here.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 9, lines 439-43,

     Spot more delicious than those gardens feigned / Or of revived Adonis, or renowned / Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son, / Or that, not mystic, where the sapient king / Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.

   • 1839, "Bewitched Butter" in W. B. Yates (ed.), Irish Fairy and Folk Tales (1892), Barnes & Noble, 2009, p. 295,

     She had five or six cows; but it was observed by her sapient neighbors that she sold more butter every year than other farmers' wives who had twenty.

3. (chiefly science fiction) Of a species or life-form, possessing intelligence or self-awareness.
   • 1962 January, Piper, Henry Beam, “Naudsonce”, in Analog Science Fact and Science Fiction, volume 68, number 5, page 9:

     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.

Synonyms

• (possessing wisdom): wise, sagacious
• (possessing self-awareness): intelligent, self-aware, sentient

Related terms

• sapiently
• Homo sapiens

Translations

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8, page 169
• sapient adj. at the OED Science Fiction Citations Project

Noun

sapient ‎(plural sapients)

1. (chiefly science fiction) An intelligent, self-aware being.
   • 1960, Farmer, Philip José, A Woman a Day, page 30:

     It seemed to him a possibility that the Cold War Corps of March might have contacted hitherto unknown sapients on some just discovered interstellar planet.

Synonyms

• See Wikisaurus:sentient

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8, page 169
• sapient n. at the OED Science Fiction Citations Project

Anagrams

• panties, patines, ptisane

Latin

Verb

sapient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of sapiō

Old French

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin sapiēns. Compare savant

Adjective

sapient m ‎(oblique and nominative feminine singular sapient or sapiente)

1. wise; sapient

Declension

Related terms

• sapience
• sapientement

Descendants

• English: sapient (borrowed)
• French: sapient

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowing from Latin sapiēns, sapientis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsa.piˈent/

Adjective

sapient m, n ‎(feminine singular sapientă, masculine plural sapienți, feminine and neuter plural sapiente)

1. (rare) learned, wise

Declension

Synonyms

• înțelept, savant, învățat, doct, erudit

Related terms

• sapiență