savant

American  

[sa-vahnt, sav-uhnt, sa-vahn] / sæˈvɑnt, ˈsæv ənt, saˈvɑ̃ /

noun

savants plural

1. a person of profound or extensive learning; learned scholar.

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savant British  

/ ˈsævənt, savɑ̃ /

noun

1. a man of great learning; sage

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• savante
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• savants
  plural

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

savant savants

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

As a contrarian to the widely held view that the Dodgers’ Andrew Friedman is some sort of baseball savant, I offer some data that suggests otherwise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026

If Jobs was a product visionary and Cook a supply chain guru, Ternus is a hardware savant who exists somewhere in the middle.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 21, 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

The doctors call my condition acquired savant syndrome.

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the richest data streams, that build and deploy AI savants, and that embrace the new reality rather than clinging to outdated assumptions about scale.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

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Giannis Antetokounmpo are two of the other three players averaging 30 points this season and neither of them are 3-point savants, either.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 19, 2024

Then there was a large sprinkling of professional people—barristers, journalists, critics, savants, lady-doctors, strong-minded females, singers, reciters, actors.

From The Tree of Knowledge A Novel by Reynolds, Mrs. Baillie