Meaning of savante | Babel Free

Definitions

Female equivalent of savant.

feminine, form-of, rare

Examples

“The reputation of a scholar, eccentric habits, grave dress, a severe countenance, and boldness enough to be rude, have raised the Doctor to his little eminence in his circle, where he holds forth, like the philosophers of old in their porticoes, and where weak, would-be savants and savantes come, each with their taper, to borrow light from an offensive half-illumined lamp, shining dimly in neighbouring darkness.”

“There is singular lack of beauty among the savants and savantes, and the squareness and stiffness of their temper might be expressed in their forms. Grace is rare in a race that values it so slightly, and quiet ugliness is stamped on all things new and old.”

“Not only her scientific background, but a knowledge of the expertise of surgery was child’s play to her, and of the Arts and Reasoning that control our ways of life, she was a Savante.”

“Likenesses of both savants and savantes proliferated. Even though men were infinitely better educated than women, it is impossible to say with certainty that portraits of men set the standard for those of women.”

“In the late fifteenth century, these catalogues, which progressively played into women’s emergence as writers and savantes, began to include contemporary women intellectuals. […] The notion of the savante as a threat to her husband and as arrogant and unduly confident had already surfaced in the late sixteenth century, usually in connection with learned women from the lesser nobility and the upper gentry.”

CEFR level