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Origin and history of sapience

sapience(n.)

late 14c., "wisdom, understanding, sageness; the reasonable soul, that which distinguishes humans from beasts," from Old French sapience and directly from Latin sapientia "good taste, good sense, discernment; intelligence, wisdom," from sapiens "sensible; shrewd, knowing, discrete;" also "well-acquainted with the true value of things," like Greek sophos (see sapient). Formerly also sometimes especially "intelligent taste" (1660s). OED calls it "A learned synonym. Now rare in serious use."

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to sapience

sapient(adj.)

"wise, sage, discerning," late 15c. (early 15c. as a surname), from Old French sapient and directly from Latin sapientem (nominative sapiens) "sensible; shrewd, knowing, discrete;" also "well-acquainted with the true value of things" (like Greek sophos), a specialized use of the present participle of sapere, of things, "to taste, have taste;" of persons, "to have discernment, be wise."

This is reconstructed to be from PIE root *sep- (1) "to taste, perceive;" source also of Old Saxon ansebban "to perceive, remark," Old High German antseffen, Old English sefa "mind, understanding, insight," Old Norse sefi "thought"). "[N]ow generally used ironically" [Century Dictionary]. Related: Sapiently; sapiential.

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    Trends of sapience

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    wisdom
    Old English wisdom "knowledge, learning, experience," from wis (see wise (adj.)) + -dom. A common Germanic compound (Old Saxon, Old Frisian wisdom, Old Norse visdomr, Old High German wistuom "wisdom," German Weistum "judicial sentence serving as a precedent"). Wisdom teeth are so
    judgment
    mid-13c., jugement, "action of trying at law, trial," also "capacity for making decisions," from Old French jugement "legal judgment; diagnosis; the Last Judgment" (11c.), from jugier "to judge" (see judge (v.)). From late 13c. as "penalty imposed by a court;" early 14c. as "any
    sagacity
    "state or character of being keenly perceptive; acuteness of mental discernment," c. 1500, from French sagacité, from Latin sagacitatem (nominative sagacitas) "keenness of perception, quality of being acute," from sagax (genitive sagacis) "of quick perception, acute," related to
    depth
    late 14c., "a deep place, deep water, the sea," also "distance or extension from the top down (opposed to height) or from without inward," apparently formed in Middle English on model of long/length, broad/breadth; from dēp "deep" (see deep (adj.)) + -th (2). Replaced older deopn
    discernment
    1580s, "keenness of intellectual perception, insight, acuteness of judgment;" see discern + -ment. From 1680s as "act of perceiving by the intellect." Penetration, or insight, goes to the heart of a subject, reads the inmost character, etc. Discrimination marks the differences i
    rare
    [thin, few, unusual] late 14c., "thin, airy, porous" (opposed to dense); mid-15c., "few in number and widely separated, sparsely distributed, seldom found, very infrequent;" from Old French rer, rere "sparse" (14c.) and directly from Latin rarus "thinly sown, having a loose textu
    vignette
    1751, "decorative design," originally a design in the form of vine tendrils around the borders of a book page, especially a picture page, from French vignette, from Old French diminutive of vigne "vineyard" (see vine). Sense transferred from the border to the picture itself, then
    groom
    c. 1200 (late 12c. in surnames), grome "male child, boy;" c. 1300, "a youth, young man," also "male servant, attendant, minor officer in a royal or noble household ranking higher than a page; a knight's squire." A word of unknown origin with no certain cognates in other Germanic
    facetious
    "sportive, playful," 1590s, from French facétieux (16c.), from facétie "a joke" (15c.), from Latin facetiae "jests, witticisms" (singular facetia), from facetus "witty, elegant, fine, courteous," which is of unknown origin, perhaps related to facis "torch." Formerly often in a go
    prosper
    mid-14c., prosperen, "be successful, thrive, advance in any good thing," from Old French prosperer (14c.) and directly from Latin prosperare "cause to succeed, render happy," from prosperus "favorable, fortunate, prosperous" (source also of Spanish and Italian prospero). This is

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