sapiens

English

Etymology

From New Latin Homo sapiens, from Latin sapiēns, present active participle of sapiō (“discern, be capable of discerning”).

Noun

sapiens (plural sapiens)

1. Homo sapiens.
   • 2000, William H. Libaw, How we got to be human: subjective minds with objective bodies‎, page 277:

     The earliest sapiens were gatherers, scavengers, and hunters of food.

   • 2005, Sherwood L. Washburn, Classification and Human Evolution‎, page 335:

     Even if we assume that the rate of change was slow and the evolving population large, we must still assume that sapiens was rather isolated.

Anagrams

• pansies

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Latin

Etymology

Present active participle of sapiō (“discern, be capable of discerning”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA: /ˈsa.pi.eːns/

Participle

sapiēns m, f, and n (genitive sapientis); third declension

1. discerning, wise, judicious
2. discreet
3. (substantive) a wise man, sage, philosopher
   • Anonymous (Can we date this quote?)

     Sapiens nihil affirmat quod non probat

     "a wise man asserts nothing which he does not (ap)prove."

Inflection

Number	Singular			Plural
Case \ Gender	M.F.	N.		MM.FF.	NN.
nominative	sapiēns	sapiēns		sapientēs	sapientia
genitive	sapientis	sapientis		sapientium	sapientium
dative	sapientī	sapientī		sapientibus	sapientibus
accusative	sapientem	sapiēns		sapientēs	sapientia
ablative	sapiente1	sapiente1		sapientibus	sapientibus
vocative	sapiēns	sapiēns		sapientēs	sapientia

¹ But sapientī when used purely as an adjective.

• comparative: sapientior, superlative: sapientissimus

Descendants

• English: sapient, Homo sapiens
• Italian: sapiente
• Old French: sapient
• Portuguese: sapiente
• Romanian: sapient