sapient

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The Word of the Day for January 12 is: 

sapient   \SAY-pee-unt\   adjective
          : possessing or expressing great sagacity

Example sentence:
          "Confucius' sapient saying that 'in the middle lies the truth' has an 
incontestable impact on China's thinking." (_Business Line_, January 26, 2001)

Did you know?
          Human beings certainly like to think they're wise, and, in fact, the 
word "Homo sapiens" ("humankind") comes in part from the Latin word "sapiens," 
meaning "wise" or "intelligent." "Sapiens" in turn comes from the verb 
"sapere," which means "to be wise" (and which also gave us "sage" and 
"savant"). "Sapiens" and "sapere" are also ancestors of our adjective 
"sapient," of course. "Sapient" came to us from Latin by way of Middle French 
and has been used in English to mean "wise" since the 15th century. Today, the 
word is often used ironically or poetically. It also appears in scientific 
contexts with the meaning "possessing intelligence," as in "the existence of 
sapient beings elsewhere in the universe is one of the great questions that may 
be answered by further space exploration."





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