This week’s theme
Nouning verbs and verbing nouns

This week’s words
woodshed
balk
festoon
bivouac
savvy


This week’s comments
AWADmail 982

Next week’s theme
Words made with animal parts

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(SAV-ee)

MEANING:

verb: To understand or know.
noun: Know-how, practical knowledge, or shrewdness.
adjective: Shrewd or knowledgeable, especially in practical matters.

ETYMOLOGY:

Via pidgin and/or creole language(s), from Portuguese and/or Spanish sabe (do you know?), from Latin sapere (to be wise). Ultimately from the Indo-European sep- (to taste or perceive), which also gave us sage, savant, savor, sapid, sapient, resipiscent, insipid, and sipid. Earliest documented use, verb: 1686, noun: 1785, adjective: 1826.

USAGE:

“‘I have never savvied the outlaw mind,’ Fred said.”
Ralph Compton; The Evil Men Do; Signet; 2015.

“He was clearly a hoodlum with a lot of street savvy.”
Robert Littell; A Nasty Piece of Work; St. Martin’s Press; 2013.

See more usage examples of savvy in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: