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
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
After all the gnashing riffs, Lauryn Hill sang a snatch of “Nothing Even Matters,” her tender 1998 duet with D’Angelo, the neo-soul savant who died in October.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 2, 2026
Young Jim showed an early gift for mathematics that bordered on savant territory.
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 15, 2025
And even though I’m still in 7th-grade math and everyone—from the principal to all my classmates—knows I’m a savant, it’s more or less okay.
From "The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl" by Stacy McAnulty
Jon Ralston, one of Nevada’s leading political savants, agreed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2026
Over the course of nearly two decades as a playcaller and head coach, Kyle Shanahan has established himself as one of the NFL’s offensive savants.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 13, 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
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
Ultimately the savants of every age have a fixed limit; beyond which ingenuity is not allowed, and everything suspected as a conspirator against honesty.
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.
