savant
Americannoun
-
savants
plural
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:
During an interview with the Zach Sang show in 2024, she spoke about a song called Fantasize, written with Swedish pop savant Max Martin, which went viral after being posted online.
From BBC ● Jul. 28, 2026
Although Brian Wilson was widely regarded as a musical savant and the innovator of the group, Love received co-writing credit on classics including “California Girls” and “Good Vibrations.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 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
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
Members of Venetian Blinds say they aren’t savants and don’t have photographic memories.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 1, 2026
One of the league’s pick-and-roll savants, Doncic should help Ayton rediscover the dominance he flashed while helping the Phoenix Suns reach the NBA Finals in 2021 and post a franchise-record 64 wins in 2022.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 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
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
The progress of science has been amazingly rapid in the last decade; but consider the savants, those exhausted hens.
From Thoughts Out of Season (Part II) by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
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.
