Did you
know?
sagacity
noun
- the quality of being discerning, sound in judgment, and farsighted; wisdom.sagacious
adjective
- having or showing keen discernment, sound judgment, and farsightedness
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000)
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WORD ORIGIN
The Online Etymology Dictionary says sagacity derived from the Middle French sagacite (circa 1548) and the Latin sagacitas, meaning the quality of being acute or having quick perception.
There is no question that humans can exhibit sagacity, but how about animals?
We did a quick search and discovered for example that parrots possess a broad range of skills including dancing, guitar playing, golf, basketball and saying offensive things on cue. We found out that dogs can carry letters, put them in the mailbox and bring the newspaper on the way back.
And then we chanced upon a video showing a young pig with the amazing ability to put toys into a box and close the lid. This made us wonder if it developed this skill in response to the owner's daily critique ("Would you tidy your room please? It looks like a pig sty!"). The young swine can also dribble a football through three obstacles and deftly score a goal with its snout. And no, its name is not Schweinsteiger. It goes by the name of Mudslinger…
---SYNONYMS
acumen, discernment, farsightedness, grasp, guile, insight, intellect, intelligence, intuition, judgment, keenness, perception, percipience, perspicacity, sharpness, shrewdness, smartness, smarts, understanding, vision, wisdom
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
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ANTONYMS
denseness, dullness, ignorance, inability, ineptness, naivete, stupidity
(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
say something like:
"Susan has great sagacity, which is why she received that well-deserved promotion."