Sophont

//ˈsoʊfɑnt// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An intelligent being; a being with a base reasoning capacity roughly equivalent to or greater than that of a human being. The word does not apply to machines unless they have true artificial intelligence, rather than mere processing capacity.

    "Likewise with the psychology of intelligent species. Most sophonts indeed possess basic instincts which diverge more or less from man's. With those of radically alien motivations we have little contact."

Synonyms

All synonyms
intelligencesapientsentient

Example

More examples

"Likewise with the psychology of intelligent species. Most sophonts indeed possess basic instincts which diverge more or less from man's. With those of radically alien motivations we have little contact."

Etymology

From sopho- + -ont. First used in the 1966 works by Poul Anderson, coined by his wife Karen Anderson.

Related phrases

artificial intelligencehuman being

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