Savant comes from French savant ('learned, knowing'), the present participle of savoir ('to know'), from Latin sapere ('to be wise, taste'). The historical chain includes French savant and Latin sapere. The quoted older senses, "learned, knowing", "to know", and "to be wise, taste", supply the semantic anchors for savant. The formation is best read as participial and borrowed: the word savant carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a noun, "a person of great learning, or one with extraordinary skill in one field". Related English forms include savvy, sapient, and savoir-faire. The result is a noun whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.