Savvy

How to spell savvy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce savvy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does savvy mean?

1. adjectiveShrewd, well informed, and good at handling practical or worldly matters.
2. nounPractical know-how or shrewd understanding of how to get things done.

Savvy in a sentence

• adjective

  A savvy investor spreads risk across several markets.

• noun

  His political savvy helped him win over the committee.

• adjective

  She is far too savvy to fall for that scam.

• noun

  Running a market stall takes real business savvy.

Where does savvy come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

This word traces back to the Latin verb sapere, meaning 'to be wise' or 'to have good taste', the same root that gives us 'sapient' and 'sage'. From Latin it passed into the Romance languages, surfacing in Spanish as sabe and in Portuguese and French in similar forms, all meaning 'he or she knows'. English picked it up in the 1700s through the pidgin and trade languages of sailors, traders, and enslaved people, where a phrase like sabe usted ('do you understand?') was clipped and reshaped into the single word we now spell 'savvy'. It first appeared as a blunt question or verb meaning 'do you understand?', then broadened into a noun for practical know-how and an adjective for someone shrewd and well informed. The doubled v is the spelling trap, since the original sabe had only one b sound; English doubled the letter to keep the short, snappy vowel.

How the word is built

• savv- (from Spanish/creole sabe: knows)
• -y (adjective/noun suffix)