different between savvy vs navvy

English

Etymology

Alteration of save, sabi (“know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese or Spanish sabe (“[she/he] knows”), from saber (“to know”), from Latin sapi? (“to be wise”).

1785, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”; West Indies pidgin borrowing of French savez(-vous) (“do you know”), Portuguese (você) sabe (“you know”) or Spanish (usted) sabe (“you know”), all from Vulgar Latin *sapere, from Latin sapere (“be wise, be knowing”) (see sapient). The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?sæ.vi/
• Rhymes: -ævi

Adjective

savvy (comparative savvier, superlative savviest)

1. (informal) Shrewd, well-informed and perceptive.
   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[1]

     That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

Synonyms

• canny

Derived terms

• tech-savvy

Related terms

Translations

Verb

savvy (third-person singular simple present savvies, present participle savvying, simple past and past participle savvied)

1. (informal) To understand.

Translations

Noun

savvy (uncountable)

1. (informal) Shrewdness.

References

• “savvy”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Chinese Pidgin English

Alternative forms

• sarby

Etymology

From Macau Pidgin Portuguese ?? (saat3 baai3), ?? (saat3 bi6), ?? (saan2 baai3), from Portuguese sabe.

Verb

savvy

1. know
2. understand

References

• Gow, W. S. P. (1924) Gow’s Guide to Shanghai, 1924: A Complete, Concise and Accurate Handbook of the City and District, Especially Compiled for the Use of Tourists and Commercial Visitors to the Far East, Shanghai, page 108: “Savvy: (Portuguese) know; understand; No savvy ? Do you not understand ?”

English

Etymology

Clipping of navigator, in reference to the navigation canals upon which these workers first toiled, + -y.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?nævi/
• Hyphenation: nav?vy

Noun

navvy (plural navvies)

1. (chiefly Britain) A laborer on a civil engineering project such as a canal or railroad.
   • 1909, B. Lindsay, Stories of the Universe: Animal Life

     Suppose two lads, fresh from school, go out into the world to earn their living; one becomes a navvy and one a clerk. In five years' time these two young men will probably be very different in appearance from one another. The navvy will have developed his muscles; he will be broad-built, broad-chested, and strong.

Derived terms

• French navvy
• steam navvy

Related terms

• navigation
• navigator

Translations

Verb

navvy (third-person singular simple present navvies, present participle navvying, simple past and past participle navvied)

1. (Britain, intransitive) To carry out physical labor on a civil engineering project.
   • 1974, Malcolm MacDonald, World From Rough Stones, 2013, unnumbered page,

     But by pretending to believe he's navvied before, I've given him double reason to drive himself hard.

   • 1978, John Shaw Neilson, The Autobiography of John Shaw Neilson, page 104,

     Before my time of navvying I believe the times were still worse.

   • 1995, F. R. Leavis, Ian Duncan MacKillop, Richard Storer (editors), F.R. Leavis: Essays and Documents, 2005, page 89,

     Three terms to use for George Eliot: the feminine imagination and sensibility; Intellect, the capacity for higher navvying; Intelligence.