Word of the Day

Friday, February 18, 2005

perspicacity

\pur-spuh-KAS-uh-tee\ , noun;

Clearness of understanding or insight; penetration, discernment.

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Quotes:

His predictions over the years have mixed unusual aristocratic insight with devastating perspicacity.

-- "Why fine titles make exceedingly fine writers", Independent, November 3, 1996

Doubtless these thumbnail sketches, like everything else Stendhal wrote, were intended ultimately to relate to his own notion of himself as a creature of invincible perspicacity and sophistication.

-- Jonathan Keates, Stendhal

Origin:

Perspicacity comes from Latin perspicax, perspicac-, "sharp-sighted," from perspicere, "to look through," from per, "through" + specere, "to look."