perspicacity
English
Etymology
From Middle French perspicacité, from Latin perspicacitas (“sharpsightedness, discrimination”).
Pronunciation
Syllables: per·spi·cac·i·ty
Noun
perspicacity (usually uncountable, plural perspicacities)
- Acute discernment or understanding; insight.
- 1904, Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, ch. 8:
- "I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money." His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity.
- 1904, Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, ch. 8:
- The human faculty or power to mentally grasp or understand clearly.
- 1856, "Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey," The Quarterly Review, vol. 98, p. 458:
- His very veneration for his father-in-law, combined as it is with a total want of the most ordinary perspicacity, is an additional disqualification.
- 1888, "Review of La suggestion mentale by H. Bourru and P. Burot," The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 503:
- As the former consists in the transmission of psychic states inappreciable to the normal perspicacity or senses, the transfer cannot pass through the medium of intelligence.
- 1856, "Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey," The Quarterly Review, vol. 98, p. 458:
- (obsolete) Keen eyesight.
- 1833, John Harrison Curtis, A Treatise on the Physiology and Diseases of the Eye, London, Longman, p. 138:
- Attentive consideration of the phenomena of vision has led to the invention of artificial aids by which the sight may be wonderfully strengthened and preserved, and man endowed at once with the perspicacity of the eagle or the minute scrutiny of the insect.
- 1833, John Harrison Curtis, A Treatise on the Physiology and Diseases of the Eye, London, Longman, p. 138:
Related terms
Translations
Acute discernment or understanding; insight
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The human faculty or power to mentally grasp or understand clearly
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Keen eyesight
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
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References
- perspicacity in An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, 1828.
- perspicacity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
- “perspicacity” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- "perspicacity" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
- Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)
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