sagacity

English

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)

1. 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: for T 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

2. (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

• sagacious

Translations

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.