Definition of "sapient"
sapient
adjective
comparative more sapient, superlative most sapient
Attempting to appear wise or discerning.
Quotations
"... A man would blush to say to himself in the darkness of the night the things he stands up on a platform in the garish light of day to stuff into the ears of a multitude whose intelligence he pretends that he esteems.... Therefore, why be sapient and solemn about it, like an editorial in a newspaper?" Nick added, with a smile.
1890, Henry James, The Tragic Muse
(dated) Possessing wisdom and discernment; wise, learned.
Quotations
[To Edgar] Come ſit thou here moſt learned Iuſtice / [To the Fool] Thou ſapient ſir ſit here, […]
c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […], published 1608, [Act III, scene vi]
Spot more delicious then thoſe Gardens feign’d / Or of reviv’d Adonis, or renownd / Alcinous, hoſt of old Laertes Son, / Or that, not Myſtic, where the Sapient King / Held dalliance with his faire Egyptian Spouſe.
1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, lines 439–443