Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Well informed and perceptive; shrewd: savvy Washington insiders.
- n. Practical understanding or shrewdness: a banker known for financial savvy.
- v. To understand; comprehend.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To know; understand; “twig”: as, do you savvy that?
- To possess knowledge.
- n. General cleverness; knowledge of the world: as, he has lots of savvy.
Wiktionary
- adj. informal Shrewd, well-informed and perceptive.
- v. informal to understand
- interj. informal Do you understand?
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. Slang, U. S. To understand; to comprehend; know.
- n. Slang, U. S. Comprehension; knowledge of affairs; mental grasp; also, practical know-how; common sense.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the cognitive condition of someone who understands
- v. get the meaning of something
Etymologies
- Alteration of save, sabi ("know") (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese or Spanish sabe ("[he] knows"), from saber ("to know"), from Latin sapere ("to be wise"). (Wiktionary)
- From Spanish sabe (usted), (you) know, from saber, to know, from Old Spanish, from Vulgar Latin *sapēre, from Latin sapere, to be wise; see sep- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He speaks angrily about what he calls a savvy campaign by Pakistan's government under President Pervez Musharraf to fleece Washington for billions of dollars even as it allowed Al Qaeda to regroup in Pakistan's tribal lands.”
“Our bargain savvy shoppers come early, grab tea or a mimosa, and spend quality time looking for right pieces to compliment their wardrobes.”
The Huffington Post: Modern Vintage Chicago Returns This Weekend (PHOTOS)
“Sure, media savvy is not a prerequisite for success, lightning does strike (Dame Rowling, for example), but such hope is NOT a plan.”
At the Book Trailer Park: Hater, Mortal Coils, and Amberville
“Mr. Malone, credited as a founding father of the cable TV business, is known as a savvy investor and tough dealmaker who has cobbled together a patchwork of businesses under the banner of his Liberty empire, including home shopping network QVC and premium cable network owner Starz Entertainment.”
The Wall Street Journal: Liberty Could Open New Chapter With Barnes
“India's vaunted tech savvy is being put to the test this week as the country embarks on a daunting mission: assigning a unique 12-digit number to each of its 1.2 billion people.”
“A lack of media savvy is one of the reasons that the Police Forces across the UK have such a piss poor media image.”
Just To Show I Didn’t Make It Up…….. « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG
“David Louis Edelman - Edelman's web savvy is unmatched and his content is not only refreshingly original, but also interesting.”
SF Signal's 10 Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Blogs
“But woods/prairie/mountain savvy and a moderate gun will go a long way.”
“The conventional wisdom prevailing since the start of the 2008 campaign has always maintained that technological savvy is the specialty of Senator Barack Obama and his followers.”
G.O.P.’s Platform Gets Web Input - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com
“But certainly the most extreme case of a museum done in by its own supposed marketing savvy is the Guggenheim, which under its former director, Thomas Krens, inaugurated an aggressive expansion plan.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘savvy’.
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Very Silly Words
A list of very silly sounding words, as well as words that are fun to say
badot, gardyloo, dingbat, gaffer, kine, haberdashery, forsooth, whey-faced, hoddypeak, brouhaha, widdershins, decemnovenarianize and 115 more...
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Words related to knowledge
Words that relate to learning, knowing, being enlightened...
revelation, eureka, awakening, idea, sapient, astute, canny, intelligent, wise, sharp, shrewd, informed and 467 more...
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Words For Novel (Part 2)
fable, sprite, syphilitic, anvil, wonderstruck, vertigo, bridled, tufted, fettered, savvy, tweed fedora, tryst and 255 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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Y
What a -Y does to an otherwise common, dull word
zany, waxy, wavy, arty, chewy, bony, boxy, cozy, nosy, foxy, wiry, junky and 321 more...
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respelt
'He spent the greater part of his life campaigning to have respelt those words that LOOK as though they are spelt wrongly but aren't.'
Re Otto Tibbit's father, fourteen times Scrabble champio...skiing, vacuum, freest, eczema, gnu, diarrhoea, taxiing, piing, safariing, qamchiing, dooziing, hongiing and 49 more...
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Dumbisms
Words and phrases I don't like. They are dumb.
re-look, good to go, reinvent the wheel, do what, ducks in a row, re-up, twofer, irregardless, repurpose, ballyhoo, bells and whistles, webinar and 55 more...
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I didn't expect to see THAT letter do...
aa, savvy, divvy, powwow, matchhead, skiing, hajj, trekking, continuum, vacuum, bathhouse, fishhook and 37 more...
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September Words-11337
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
flabbergasted, discombobulated, inclination, serendipity, savvy, profound, incarnation, myriad, confiscate, audacity, deciduous, adieu and 79 more...
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"edgy" words that make me want to pun...
edgy, hip, buzzy, buzzworthy, hotspot, hot, trendy, savvy, killer, cutting edge, touch base
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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Potpourri
eponymous, aa, pulchritude, gizmo, macabre, sui generis, solecism, solipsism, eldritch, samizdat, queue, obsequious and 469 more...
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GCI
spinster, maiden, happy-go-lucky, homonym, ill-at-ease, saw red, out of sorts, hot under the collar, taken aback, pen-names, alias, shoelaces and 378 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more... -
MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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words/phrases I wish I could find mor...
puttin' on the dog, smarty, smarty ha..., murgatroyd, treshstra, puissance, corpuscle, socker kaka, peckish, hullabaloo, salvo, holy guacamole, b..., cascade and 112 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for savvy.
mattaustin I found this word in an article called "Three days in Sri Lanka", by Nathan Myers. It is used in the sentence as followed, " For a savvy traveler like Gaskell, Sri Lanka only reiterated what he already knew." Sep 22, 2010
thtownse This is one of my most hated words. Dec 3, 2009
super-thegirlnextfloor Captain Jack Sparrow. Jun 23, 2009
yarb 'I tried to crack on I hadn't noticed anything, but it kept on and on and I saw it was trying to attract my attention so I couldn't anything but try to savvy what it was on about...'
- Peter Reading, C, 1984 Jul 4, 2008