Dictionary

sapient

Pronunciation

(British) IPA: /ˈseɪpɪənt/
(GA) IPA: /ˈseɪpiənt/

Adjective

sapient

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.
(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.
(chiefly, science fiction) Of a species or life-form, possessing intelligence or self-awareness.

Synonyms

(possessing wisdom) seeSynonyms en
(possessing self-awareness) seeSynonyms en

Translations

Russian: разу́мный

Noun

sapient (plural sapients)

(chiefly, science fiction) An intelligent, self-aware being.

Synonyms

seeSynonyms en

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