sophont

Meaning

Noun

• An intelligent being; a being with a base reasoning capacity roughly equivalent to or greater than that of a human being. The word does not apply to machines unless they have true artificial intelligence, rather than mere processing capacity.

Origin

• From Ancient Greek σοφός + ὤν, present participle of εἰμί. First used in the 1966 works by Poul Anderson, coined by his wife Karen Anderson.