SAGACITY

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does sagacity mean? 

• SAGACITY (noun)
  The noun SAGACITY has 2 senses:

1. the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations

2. the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating

  Familiarity information: SAGACITY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SAGACITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

discernment; judgement; judgment; sagaciousness; sagacity

Hypernyms ("sagacity" is a kind of...):

sapience; wisdom (ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sagacity"):

eye (good discernment (either visually or as if visually))

common sense; good sense; gumption; horse sense; mother wit; sense (sound practical judgment)

judiciousness (good judgment)

circumspection; discreetness; discretion; prudence (knowing how to avoid embarrassment or distress)

indiscreetness; injudiciousness (lacking good judgment)

Derivation:

sagacious (skillful in statecraft or management)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

judiciousness; sagaciousness; sagacity

Hypernyms ("sagacity" is a kind of...):

wisdom; wiseness (the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight)

 Context examples 

Could he have seen only half that she felt before the end of a week, he would have thought Mr. Crawford sure of her, and been delighted with his own sagacity.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

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.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every day’s experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking until a few more months should have added to my sagacity.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Margaret's sagacity was not always displayed in a way so satisfactory to her sister.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

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.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Doctor stopped, smilingly clapped me on the shoulder again, and exclaimed, with a triumph most delightful to behold, as if I had penetrated to the profoundest depths of mortal sagacity, My dear young friend, you have hit it.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

To Catherine's simple feelings, this odd sort of reserve seemed neither kindly meant, nor consistently supported; and its unkindness she would hardly have forborne pointing out, had its inconsistency been less their friend; but Anne and Maria soon set her heart at ease by the sagacity of their I know what; and the evening was spent in a sort of war of wit, a display of family ingenuity, on one side in the mystery of an affected secret, on the other of undefined discovery, all equally acute.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever- torturing pain arose.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I heard a noise just over my head, like the clapping of wings, and then began to perceive the woful condition I was in; that some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak, with an intent to let it fall on a rock, like a tortoise in a shell, and then pick out my body, and devour it: for the sagacity and smell of this bird enables him to discover his quarry at a great distance, though better concealed than I could be within a two-inch board.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)