Sophont

Pronunciation

• US IPA: /ˈsoÊŠfÉ‘nt/

Origin

From Ancient Greek σοφός ("wise") + ὤν ("on"), present participle of εἰμί ("being, existing, essence"). First used in the 1966 works by Poul Anderson, coined by his wife Karen Anderson.

Full definition of sophont

Noun

1. (chiefly science fiction) An intelligent being; a being with a base reasoning capacity roughly equivalent to or greater than that of a human being. The word does not apply to machines unless they have true artificial intelligence, rather than mere processing capacity.
• 1980, David Brin, , p50I'm honored to meet a sophont of the Soro line in person!
• 1992, Vernor Vinge, , Tor Books, p406Evil, they argued, could only have meaning on smaller scales, in the hurt that one sophont does to another.
• 1997, Spider Robinson, Lifehouse, Baen Books, p2Only one sophont appeared to be involved—and not a sophisticated one.
• 2004, Howard Tayler Schlock Mercenary, Mar. 28, 2004, web-comic
  self-publishedLike most sensible sophonts, they invented civilization. With civilization came civility, civil service, and of course civil war.
• 2007, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, Nov. 30, 2007, web-comic
  self-publishedAs I understand it, he sought to avoid turning one-point-six trillion terran sophonts into undead, war-mongering super-soldiers.
• 2009, Howard Tayler, Schlock Mercenary, Oct. 11, 2009, web-comic
  self-publishedReflection on the nature of sapience, and the ubiquity of violence among sophonts?

Synonyms

• See

Anagrams

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