Sagaciously

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

  1. In a manner demonstrating keen judgment, discernment, and practical wisdom in understanding complex situations or making prudent decisions
  2. With sharp insight and practical wisdom, demonstrating keen judgment in evaluating complex matters
  3. In a way that shows discerning intelligence and sound reasoning when assessing situations or making decisions

Etymology: A wise judgment, in this word's ancestry, began with a dog's nose. The Latin adjective "sagax," the root of "sagacious," described above all a hunting hound that could pick up a faint scent and follow it. "Canes sagaces" were keen-nosed dogs, and only by extension was a quick-witted person "sagax." Behind "sagax" stands the verb "sagire," to perceive keenly. Cicero, in his treatise On Divination, spelled out the family for his readers: "sagire" means to sense acutely, which is why old women were called "sagae," wise women or witches, because they wish to know many things, and why keen dogs were called "sagaces." The same verb gave Latin "praesagire," to sense beforehand, the source of English "presage." Further back lies an Indo-European root meaning to seek out or track down, which English also inherited directly in "seek," "sake" and "forsake." The adjective reached English by the mid-1600s, and at first it kept its sense of smell. Milton, in Paradise Lost (1667), has Death lift his head toward the newly fallen world and turn "his Nostril wide into the murky Air, / Sagacious of his Quarry from so farr." The keenness of the hound slowly gave way to the keenness of the mind, and the adverb followed. "Sage" looks like a close cousin but is not one. It comes through French from Latin "sapere," to taste or to be wise. Latin made the leap from the senses to wisdom twice, once by the tongue and once by the nose. The ending has its own surprise. The adverb-forming "-ly" goes back to Old English "-līċe," from a Germanic word for body or form, the same word that survives in "like" and in "lychgate," the roofed gate where a corpse waited before burial. To act sagaciously is, at bottom, to act in the form of a good tracking dog.

Synonyms: wisely, judiciously, pragmatically

Antonyms: foolishly, ignorantly