Definition of "sapience"
sapience
noun
usually uncountable, plural sapiences
The property of being sapient, the property of possessing or being able to possess wisdom.
Quotations
Mean while the Son / On his great Expedition now appeer'd, / Girt with Omnipotence, with Radiance crown'd / Of Majestie Divine, Sapience and Love / Immense, and all his Father in him shon.
1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, lines 192–196
Was it that his eccentric unsentimental old sapience, primitive in its kind, saw or thought it saw something which, in contrast with the war-ship's environment, looked oddly incongruous in the Handsome Sailor?
1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter VIII.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951