Word of the Day

: December 2, 2018

sciential

adjective sye-EN-shul

What It Means

1 : relating to or producing knowledge or science

2 : having efficient knowledge : capable

sciential in Context

There was no apparent sciential reason for the birds to have migrated this far south.

"The hidden treasures of science, St. Bonaventure tells us, can be discovered … in a knowledge of either the principles or the conclusions of sciential demonstrations." — John Francis Quinn, The Historical Constitution of St. Bonaventure's Philosophy, 1973

Did You Know?

You might expect sciential, which derives from Latin scientia (meaning "knowledge"), to be used mostly in technical papers and descriptions of scientific experiments. In truth, however, sciential has long been a favorite of playwrights and poets. It appears in the works of Ben Jonson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and John Keats, among others. Keats made particularly lyrical use of it in his narrative poem "Lamia," which depicts a doomed love affair between the Greek sorceress Lamia and a human named Lycius. In the poem, Hermes transforms Lamia from a serpent into a beautiful woman, "Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain."