Sagacity

//səˈɡæ.sə.ti// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions; the quality of being perceptive, astute or insightful. uncountable, usually

    "Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even your sagacity, to discover the name of your admirer."

  2. 2
    the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating wordnet
  3. 3
    Keen sense of smell. obsolete, uncountable, usually

    "[…] this Beast [the Ichneumon] is not only enemy to the Crocodile and Asp, but also to their Egs, which she hunteth out by the sagacity of her nose, and so destroyeth them […]"

  4. 4
    the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
judiciousnesssagaciousnesssagaciousnesswisdomwisdomacuity

Example

More examples

"The conduct of the criminal investigation has been left in the experienced hands of Inspector Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, who is following up the clues with his accustomed energy and sagacity."

Etymology

From French sagacité, from Latin sagācitās (“sagaciousness”), from sagāx (“of quick perception, acute, sagacious”), from sāgiō (“I perceive by the senses”). Equivalent to sagac(ious) + -ity.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.