sagax

Forms

sagāx (genitive sagācis, superlative sagācissimus, adverb sagāciter); third-declension one-termination adjective^[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin sāgiō (“to perceive”) + -āx.^[2][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *sag-āk- (“perceptive”) beside a verb Proto-Italic *sāg-ije/o- (“to seek, perceive”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂ǵ-i- (“tracking”), and compares Old Irish saigid (“to try to reach”), Hittite šāgāi- (“omen”), Ancient Greek ἡγέομαι (hēgéomai, “to direct, lead”) and English seek.^[4] Köbler and Pokorny give the root as ⟨*sāg-⟩ “to seek, track”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan and Köbler date it from Plautus,^[4][5] who says of someone that he has a keen nose.^[3] The OLD's first quotation is Ennius' hunting dog that scents the wild beasts with its keen nose.^[2]

Semantic evolution

It is first keen-scented, chiefly of dogs, as in Cicero and Ovid;^[3][2] Ovid also has a goose keener than dogs.^[3][2] Of people and minds it is sharp, acute or perceptive: Afranius asks who has so shrewd a heart and so unique a wit, and Lucretius writes of what we seek with keen reasoning.^[2] Church Latin glosses it keen-sensed and sagacious,^[6] and Wiktionary records a rare sense magical.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a keen nose.^[3][5]
• 204–169 BC – Ennius of a keen-scented hound.^[2][5]
• second half of the 2nd century BC – Afranius of a shrewd mind.^[2][5]
• 96–55 BC – Lucretius of keen reasoning.^[2][5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Keen-scented; keen in any of the senses.^[2][3][1]
2. Of people and minds, sharp, acute, perceptive, shrewd, sagacious.^[2][3][1][6]
3. (rare) Magical.^[1]

Word family

• sagācitās
• sagāciter

Related words

• sāgiō
• sāga
• praesāgiō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
6. ^ a b Stelten, Leo F. (1995), Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Latin, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson