Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted; wisdom.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being sagacious, in any sense; sagaciousness.
  • noun Synonyms Perspicacity, etc. (see judgment), insight, motherwit. See astute and discernment.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality of being sagacious; quickness or acuteness of sense perceptions; keenness of discernment or penetration with soundness of judgment; shrewdness.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations
  • noun the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French sagacité, from Old French sagacite, from Latin sagācitās, quickness of perception, from sagāx, sagāc-, of keen perception; see sagacious.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French sagacité, from Latin sagacitas ("sagaciousness"), from sagax ("of quick perception, acute, sagacious"), from sagire ("to perceive by the senses").

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Examples

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  • Gates’ lack of news or sagacity was doubly troubling for the elaborate protocol required to get in, including making people sit in the auditorium 90 minutes ahead of the speech – without so much as wireless connectivity so they could make use of the time

    January 9, 2007

  • Uses: sagacious; sagaciousness

    September 6, 2008

  • I never fully understood my relations.

    December 21, 2008

  • lisa bono, I presume (see visuals)

    August 7, 2011

  • HU for "sagacity" = itelokepesseg

    September 13, 2012