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Definition 2024

savvy

savvy

English

Adjective

savvy ‎(comparative savvier, superlative savviest)

  1. (informal) Shrewd, well-informed and perceptive.
    • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games
      That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.

Synonyms

Translations

Verb

savvy ‎(third-person singular simple present savvies, present participle savvying, simple past and past participle savvied)

  1. (informal) to understand

Translations

Interjection

savvy?

  1. (informal) Do you understand?

Translations

Noun

savvy ‎(uncountable)

  1. Shrewdness

Etymology

Alteration of save, sabi ‎(“know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese or Spanish sabe ‎(“[she/he] knows”), from saber ‎(“to know”), from Latin sapere ‎(“to be wise”).

1785, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”; West Indies pidgin borrowing of French savez(-vous) ‎(“do you know”) or Spanish sabe (usted) ‎(“you know”), both from Vulgar Latin *sapere, from Latin sapere ‎(“be wise, be knowing”) (see sapient). The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈsæ.vi/
  • Rhymes: -ævi

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