4 November 2015

perspicacious

[pur-spi-key-shuh s]

adjective

1. having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning:
to exhibit perspicacious judgment.
2. Archaic. having keen vision.

Origin of perspicacious

1610-1620; perspicaci(ty) + -ous

Related forms

perspicaciously, adverb
perspicaciousness, noun

Can be confused

perspicacious, perspicuous.

Synonyms

1. perceptive, acute, shrewd, penetrating.

Antonyms

1. dull, stupid.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for perspicacious

Historical Examples

But no matter how perspicacious one may be, one will never be able to decide anything to his disadvantage.
Letters to an Unknown
Prosper Mrime

Such a policy was, of course, indicative of a shrewd and perspicacious mind.
Catherine de’ Medici
Honore de Balzac

He knew him to be nervous, on the one hand, and perspicacious on the other.
Cosmopolis, Complete
Paul Bourget

Anagram

occupies pairs
is soup caprice
icecaps pi ours

Today’s quote

I wish that death had spared me until your library had been complete.

― Lorenzo de’ Medici

On this day

4 November 1926 – British archeologist, Howard Carter, discovers steps leading to the tomb of the Pharoah Tutankhamen.

4 November 1979 – Students loyal to the Ayatollah Khomeini over-run the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and take 90 Americans hostage in protest against the former Shah of Iran being allowed into the U.S. for medical treatment. The hostages were held for 14 months and released after the U.S. government promised $5 billion in foreign aid and unfroze $3 billion of Iranian funds. During the crisis, President Jimmy Carter attempted an unsuccessful rescue mission by helicopter, which ended in the deaths of 8 U.S. marines.

4 November 1995 – assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The assassin was Yigal Amir, an Israeli right-wing Zionist, who opposed the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords in which Rabin had negotiated a peace plan with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.