sagacity

English

WOTD – 24 July 2012

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.

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. [from 16th c.]
- 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter 15, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume (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^[1], 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^[2], 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 […]

quality of being sage