sapience

English

Etymology

From Middle English sapience, from Old French sapience, from Latin sapientia.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈseɪpiəns/, /ˈseɪpjəns/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈseɪpɪəns/, /ˈseɪpjəns/

Noun

sapience (usually uncountable, plural sapiences)

1. The property of being sapient, the property of possessing or being able to possess wisdom.
   • 1651, Thomas Hobbes, chapter V, in Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, London: […] [William Wilson] for Andrew Crooke, […], →OCLC, 1st part (Of Man), page 22:

     As, much Experience, is Prudence; ſo, is much Science, Sapience.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 192–196:

     Mean while the Son / On his great Expedition now appeer'd, / Girt with Omnipotence, with Radiance crown'd / Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love / Immense, and all his Father in him shon.

   • 1886 [1882], Henry James, The Point of View‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.:

     In Europe it’s too dreary—the sapience, the solemnity, the false respectability, the verbosity, the long disquisitions on superannuated subjects.

   • 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter VIII.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:

     Was it that his eccentric unsentimental old sapience, primitive in its kind, saw or thought it saw something which, in contrast with the war-ship's environment, looked oddly incongruous in the Handsome Sailor?

   • 1926, Dorothy Parker, “Ballade at Thirty-Five”, in The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker, New York: The Modern Library, published 1936, page 60:

     This, a solo of sapience, / This, a chantey of sophistry, / This, the sum of experiments— / I loved them until they loved me.

   • 2009, Robert Brandom, Reason in Philosophy: Animating Ideas:

     I then marked out three ways in which we can instead describe and demarcate ourselves in terms of the sapience that distinguishes us from the beasts of forest and field.

Coordinate terms

• sentience

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French sapience, from Old French sapience, borrowed from Latin sapientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sa.pjɑ̃s/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

sapience f (plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience

Related terms

• savoir

Further reading

• “sapience”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle English

Alternative forms

• sapiens, sapiense, sapyence, sapyens

Etymology

From Old French sapience, from Latin sapientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌsaːpiˈɛns(ə)/, /ˈsaːpiɛns(ə)/

Noun

sapience (uncountable)

1. wisdom, discernment (especially religious)
   • 1478, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Wife of Bath's Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales‎^[2], 1195-8:

     Povert is hateful good, and, as I gesse, / A ful greet bringer out of bisinesse; / A greet amender eek of sapience / To him that taketh it in pacience.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

2. (One of) the Poetic Books of the Bible.

Descendants

• English: sapience

References

• “sapience, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Middle French

Etymology

From Old French sapience.

Noun

sapience f (plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience
   • 1534, François Rabelais, Gargantua:

     car leur sçavoir n'estoit que besterie et leur sapience n'estoit que moufles

     for their knowledge was just nonsense and their wisdom was just waffle.

Descendants

• French: sapience

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin sapientia.

Noun

sapience oblique singular, f (oblique plural sapiences, nominative singular sapience, nominative plural sapiences)

1. wisdom, sapience
   • 1260–1267, Brunetto Latini, “Cist premiers livres parole de la naissance de toutes choses [This first book talks about the birth of all things]” (chapter 1), Livre I - Premiere partie, in Livres dou Tresor [Book of Treasures]; republished as Polycarpe Chabaille, compiler, Li livres dou tresor par Brunetto Latini‎^[3], Paris: Imprimerie impériale, 1863, page 1:

     si come li sires qui vuet en petit leu amasser choses de grandisme vaillance […] por acroistre son pooir […] i met il les plus chieres choses et les plus precieux joiaus que il puet, selonc sa bone entencion, tout autressi est li cors de cest livre compilez de sapience

     Just like the lord, who wishes to accumulate very valuable things in a tiny place […] in order to increase his power, […] puts there—according to his good intention—the dearest things and the most precious jewels he can, so the body of this book is filled with knowledge

Descendants

• → Middle English: sapience, sapiens, sapiense, sapyence, sapyens
  • English: sapience
• Middle French: sapience
  • French: sapience