savvy

Meanings

Adjective

• Shrewd, well-informed and perceptive.

Verb

• To understand.

Noun

• Shrewdness.

Related

Similar words

• canny

Origin

• Alteration of save, sabi (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese or Spanish sabe, from saber, from Latin sapiō.
• 1785, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”; West Indies pidgin borrowing of French savez ("do you know"), Portuguese sabe ("you know") or Spanish sabe ("you know"), all from Vulgar Latin *sapere, from Latin sapere ("be wise, be knowing") (see sapient). The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.