Hey all! From now on, I’ll be doing ongoing posts about interesting words and phrases I’ve encountered. These posts will be called A Word on Vocabulary. To kick it off, one of my personal favourites—perspicacity!
Meaning: to have a deep and quick insight and understanding of present matters; to have a depth of wisdom that lends itself to shrewd application of knowledge and insight; the ability to discern subtleties involving all the senses.
Origin: perspicacitas (Latin), meaning “throughsightedness”.
I first read the word “perspicacity” in C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books. The beautiful prose of these books allowed for some truly poetic expressions, with Forester expertly making full use of the English language. Horatio Hornblower, the protagonist of the series, is described as having “perspicacity”, or being “perspicacious”. Since then, it has stuck with me and has also become a quality I’ve tried to emulate in my life.