noun
definition
Keen sense of smell.
definition
The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions; the quality of being perceptive, astute or insightful.
synonyms
Examples of sagacity in a Sentence
This discovery was not accidental or unforeseen, but was due to the sagacity of those who designed the voyage.
This Dr Parkman, a man of rare sagacity and exquisite humour, was the father of Francis Parkman, the historian.
His sagacity was indeed sometimes at fault.
Nor had he much political sagacity.
By his political sagacity and moderation Manfred won a strong party to his side and helped Conrad to subjugate the rebellious barons.
To the inventive activity of the discoverer he had already united the patient skill of the observer and the practical sagacity of the experimentalist.
Yet he cannot deny that "he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated"; and admits that "he was not a man of blood," and that he possessed "a wonderful understanding in the natures and humour of men," and "a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity and a most magnanimous resolution."
They decided each problem on its merits, looking more to the spirit than to the letter, and often showing a practical sagacity worthy of Johnson himself.
I must do many things which require skill of hand and also sagacity of mind.
The death of Salisbury, occuring soon after, opened a position in which Bacon thought his great political skill and sagacity might be made more immediately available for the king's service.
He had, however, the courage to act up to his own professions in collocating the rollers (Coracias) with the beeeaters (Merops), and had the sagacity to surmise that Menura was not a Gallinaceous bird.
Neither were they prepared; and the scandals and political disturbances that ensued revealed him as a party leader who could act on such occasions with a dignity, moderation and sagacity that served his country well, maintained the honour of party government and cost his friends nothing.
Eight varieties of such experiments are enumerated, and a comparison is drawn between this and the inductive method; " though the rational method of inquiry by the Organon promises far greater things in the end, yet this sagacity, proceeding by learned experience, will in the meantime present mankind with a number of inventions which lie near at hand."
He was without doubt one of the greatest statesmen of his age, concealing beneath a simple exterior and homely habits a profound political sagacity and an unerring common-sense, and possessing in a high degree those useful qualities of patience, moderation, and tenacity, which characterized nearly all the princes of the house of Jagiello.
But he owed his long continuance in office especially to his sagacity.
Events, however, were doing more than words could do, to confirm the public opinion of Burke's sagacity and foresight.
The former, while accepting utility as the criterion of " material goodness," had adhered to Shaftesbury's view that dispositions, not results of action, were the proper object of moral approval; at the same time, while giving to benevolence the first place in his account of personal merit, he had shrunk from the paradox of treating it as the sole virtue, and had added a rather undefined and unexplained train of qualities, - veracity, fortitude, activity, industry, sagacity, - immediately approved in various degrees by the " moral sense " or the " sense of dignity."
For this purpose they bred dogs of great swiftness, strength and sagacity, which were much admired by the Romans.
His assumptions are based upon ordinary observation and experience, and are usually accurate in proportion to his practical shrewdness and sagacity, so that he is not interested in the speculative flights of philosophy, except in so far as they influence or have influenced conduct.
Whatever we may think of the political sagacity of such a judgment, it is due to Comte to say that he did not expect to see his dictatorial republic transformed into a dynastic empire, and, next, that he did expect from the Man of December freedom of the press and of public meeting.
The Czartoryscy, who were to dominate Polish politics for the next half-century, came of an ancient Ruthenian stock which had intermarried with the Jagiellos at an early date, and had always been remarkable for their civic virtues and political sagacity.
The march was one unbroken success, thanks to Wellesley's forethought and sagacity in dealing with the physical conditions and his personal and diplomatic ascendancy among the chieftains of the district.
Nevertheless his history of Greek philosophy remains a noble monument of solid learning informed with natural sagacity.
They were of absorbing interest to Paris, to France and to Europe; and upon them the Girondist leader at last, on the 31st of December 1792, broke silence, delivering one of his greatest orations, probably one of the greatest combinations of sound reasoning, sagacity and eloquence which has ever been displayed in the annals of French politics.
Even in Italy, though his general course of action was warped by wrong prepossessions, he in many instances manifested exceptional practical sagacity in dealing with immediate difficulties and emergencies.
A study of his works reveals an unusual combination of skill and originality in the mathematical treatment of many of the most difficult problems of astronomy, an unfailing patience and sagacity in dealing with immense masses of numerical results, and a talent for observation of the highest order.
It is, he says, the procedure from one experiment to another, and it is not a science but an art or learned sagacity (resembling in this Aristotle's lyxivoca), which may, however, be enlightened by the precepts of the Interpretatio.
His firmness was heroic, his sagacity profound and far-seeing; he supported good and evil fortune with equal dignity; and his fall was on both occasions due to revolutions beyond his control.
In 1587 Perrot conceived a plan for kidnapping Hugh Roe (Hugh the Red), now a youth of fifteen, who had already given proof of exceptional manliness and sagacity.
His leading counsel was the celebrated Serjeant Glanville (1586-1661), who, perceiving in the acuteness and sagacity of his youthful client a peculiar fitness for the legal profession, succeeded, with much difficulty, in inducing him to renounce his military for a legal career, and on the 8th of November 1629 Hale became a member of the honourable society of Lincoln's Inn.
The court was frivolous, vacillating, stone deaf and stone blind; the gentry were amiable, but distinctly bent to the very last on holding to their privileges, and they were wholly devoid both of the political experience that only comes of practical responsibility for public affairs, and of the political sagacity that only comes of political experience.
He showed great sagacity in receiving the fugitive Adalbert, bishop of Prague, and when the saint suffered martyrdom at the hands of the pagan Sla y s (April 2 3, 997), Boleslaus purchased his relics and solemnly laid them in the church of Gnesen, founded by his father, which now became the metropolitan see of Poland.
Ranavalona II., her predecessor and her successor were successively married to the prime minister, Rainilaiarivony, a man of great ability and sagacity, who, by his position as husband and chief adviser of the sovereign, became virtual ruler of the country.
The affairs of the colony were now in a critical condition; a man of experience and decision was needed to cope with the difficulties, and Louis XIV., who was not wanting in sagacity, wisely made choice of the choleric count to represent and uphold the power of France.
His name is nevertheless justly associated with that vast extension of the bounds of the visible universe which has rendered modern astronomy the most sublime of sciences, and his telescopic observations are a standing monument to his sagacity and acumen.
Before the commotion caused by the death of Victor Emmanuel had passed away, the decease of Pius IX (7th February 1878) placed further demands upon Crispis sagacity and promptitude.
It may be said that the author, while denying that wisdom (practical sagacity and level-headedness) can give permanent satisfaction, yet admits its practical value in the conduct of life.
Even rood years after this period, the dog was highly esteemed in Egypt for its sagacity and other excellent qualities; for when Pythagoras, after his return from Egypt, founded a new sect in Greece, and at Croton in southern Italy, he taught, with the Egyptian philosophers, that at the death of the body the soul entered into that of various animals.
The reports of the earlier wise men, men of practical sagacity in political and social affairs, have come to us from unfriendly sources; it is quite possible that among them were some who took interest in life for its own sake, and reflected on its human moral basis.
To this lofty quality of intellect he added a rare sagacity in perceiving analogies, and in detecting the new truths that lay concealed in his formulae, and a tenacity of mental grip, by which problems, once seized, were held fast, year after year, until they yielded up their solutions.
Galen was a man furnished with all the anatomical, medical and philosophical knowledge of his time; he had studied all kinds of natural curiosities, and had stood in near relation to important political events; he possessed enormous industry, great practical sagacity and unbounded literary fluency.
His remarkable speech of the 24th of November 1791 is a convincing proof of his sagacity.
His rule was noted for firmness, moderation and high political sagacity, and he succeeded for a long time in retaining the friendship and confidence of his master the shah, although his career was beset with political intrigues and jealousy on the part of rival and court favourites, and with internal turbulence.
At times he had the sagacity to recognize the utility of alliances, as was shown by those he concluded with the Porte and with the Protestant princes of Germany.
Fox made many mistakes, due in some cases to vehemence of temperament, and in others only to be ascribed to want of sagacity.
After the accession of the Whigs to office in 1832 he held various important offices in the ministry, and most of the measures of reform for Scotland, such as burgh reform, the improvements in the law of entail, and the reform of the sheriff courts, owed much to his sagacity and energy.
At the same time this coarseness of taste did not blunt his intellectual sagacity.
Hamilton (Discussions, p. 197) allows greater sagacity to Collier than to Berkeley, on the ground that he did not vainly attempt to enlist men's natural belief against the hypothetical realism of the philosophers.
But great personal qualities supplemented his political dexterity and sagacity.
As a Hebrew philologist he holds high rank; and as a constructive critic he is remarkable for acuteness a.nd sagacity.