different between sapient vs sapience

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French sapient, or its source, Latin sapi?ns. Doublet of savant.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?se?p??nt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?se?pi?nt/

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, [1]

     [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, [2]

     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.

Synonyms

• (possessing wisdom): See Thesaurus:wise
• (possessing self-awareness): See Thesaurus:self-aware

Related terms

Translations

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) , “sapient”, in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ?ISBN, page 169
• Jesse Sheidlower, editor (2001–2021) , “sapient adj.”, in Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.

Noun

sapient (plural sapients)

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

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:sentient

References

• Jeff Prucher, editor (2007) , “sapient”, in Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction, Oxford, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, ?ISBN, page 169
• Jesse Sheidlower, editor (2001–2021) , “sapient n.”, in Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “sapient”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• painest, panties, pantsie, patines, peisant, pianets, pinates, ptisane, spinate

Latin

Verb

sapient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of sapi?

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sapi?ns. Compare savant

Adjective

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

1. wise; sapient

Declension

Related terms

• sapience
• sapientement

Descendants

• ? English: sapient
• French: sapient

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sapi?ns, sapientis.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sa.pi?ent/

Adjective

sapient m or n (feminine singular sapient?, masculine plural sapien?i, feminine and neuter plural sapiente)

1. (rare) learned, wise

Declension

Synonyms

• în?elept, savant, înv??at, doct, erudit

Related terms

• sapien??

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Old French sapience, from Latin sapientia.

Noun

sapience (usually uncountable, plural sapiences)

1. The property of being sapient, the property of possessing or being able to possess wisdom.
   • 1478, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, "The Wife of Bath's Tale" 1195-8, [1]

     Povert is hateful good, and, as I gesse, / A ful greet bringer out of bisinesse; / A greet amender eek of sapience / To him that taketh it in pacience.

   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I, Chapter V, [2]

     As much Experience, is Prudence; so, is much Science, Sapience.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book VII, 192-6, [3]

     Mean while the Son / On his great Expedition now appeer'd, / Girt with Omnipotence, with Radiance crown'd / Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love / Immense, and all his Father in him shon.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 8, [4]

     Was it that his eccentric unsentimental old sapience, primitive in its kind, saw or thought it saw something which, in contrast with the war-ship's environment, looked oddly incongruous in the Handsome Sailor?

   • 1926, Dorothy Parker, "Ballade at Thirty-Five" in The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker, New York: The Modern Library, 1936, p. 60,

     This, a solo of sapience, / This, a chantey of sophistry, / This, the sum of experiments— / I loved them until they loved me.

   • 2009, Robert Brandom, Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas

     I then marked out three ways in which we can instead describe and demarcate ourselves in terms of the sapience that distinguishes us from the beasts of forest and field.

French

Etymology

From Middle French sapience, from Old French sapience, borrowed from Latin sapientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sa.pj??s/

Noun

sapience f (plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience

Related terms

• savoir

Further reading

• “sapience” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French sapience.

Noun

sapience f (plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience

Descendants

• French: sapience

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sapientia.

Noun

sapience f (oblique plural sapiences, nominative singular sapience, nominative plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience

Descendants

• ? English: sapience
• Middle French: sapience
  • French: sapience