savant
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of savant
1710–20; < French: man of learning, scholar, old present participle of savoir to know ≪ Latin sapere to be wise; see sapient
Explanation
You know that girl in your school with a 4.0 GPA? She is a savant in the making. A savant is someone over-the-top smart, a scholar. It might take a savant only five minutes to do an entire math test. Savant is the French word for "learned" and it goes back to the Latin word sapere, "to be wise." In English, a savant can be someone is who is wise and learned in general, or someone who is extremely skilled in a particular area, like your little brother who can rattle off the first three hundred digits of pi.
Vocabulary lists containing savant
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"Simon's Saga," Vocabulary from Episode 5
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Don’t deploy AI minions to “do the boring work” for you, as so many sales pitches argue; use it as a savant collaborator to explore uncertainty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
An Alabama-born engineer seen as a supply-chain savant, Tim Cook took on the daunting challenge of succeeding Apple's iconic boss Steve Jobs 15 years ago.
From Barron's ● Apr. 21, 2026
This hire is either a masterstroke that fuels the Trojans’ return to glory — or the point of no return for a head coach desperate to prove he’s not just a one-dimensional offensive savant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 31, 2026
Young Jim showed an early gift for mathematics that bordered on savant territory.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 15, 2025
After I was diagnosed as a savant, school got really hard for me.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
Winners will be those that control the richest data streams, that build and deploy AI savants, and that embrace the new reality rather than clinging to outdated assumptions about scale.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 22, 2025
“Oh, Mary!” is the kind of instant sensation that’s all too rare these days, one so undeniable it immediately breaks through the crowd of theater savants to a wider audience of curious patrons.
From Salon ● Jun. 9, 2025
For the sibling pop savants, work and family have long been intertwined.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2024
Basketball savants want to ensure the greatness of those HBCUs is not overlooked when debating the best teams ever.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 4, 2024
According to the general tradition, Ḥarírí was one day seated with a number of savants in the mosque of the Banú Ḥarám at Baṣra, when an old man entered, footsore and travel-stained.
From A Literary History of the Arabs by Nicholson, Reynold
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
