Definition of "sapient" [sa•pi•ent]

• Having great wisdom and discernment. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "We chose the term sapient leadership to describe what we see changing in the leader's role."
• "One of my main conclusions is that our species is simply not sufficiently wise (or I prefer the term 'sapient' to differentiate between a native capacity and an actualized capability) to deal with the world we have created."
• "Wide-ranging introduction to the paradoxes arising from standard assumptions about technological progress, the abundance of sapient life and the age of planets."