Noun

(en noun)

Something with which a person or thing is endowed.

* 1791 , , Letter to Thomas Jefferson on racism and slavery (19 August 1791):

I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments .

* 1958 , , Speech to the United Parents Association:

We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments .

* 1980 , Ray Broadus Browne, Rituals and ceremonies in popular culture , page 230:

the woman with larger-than-usual breasts will be initially perceived only as a sex object if she doesn't take steps to disguise her endowment .

* 1985 , , Interview on The Open Mind (11 May 1985):

What is … important is that we — number one: Learn to live with each other. Number two: try to bring out the best in each other. The best from the best, and the best from those who, perhaps, might not have the same endowment .

* 2006 , Natalie R. Collins, Wives and Sisters , page 54:

Tami also had huge breasts, and every teenage boy wanted to touch them. Tami, knowing she was not beautiful, used her endowment to great advantage.

Property or funds invested for the support and benefit of a person or not-for-profit institution.

* 1884 , , in chapter 8 of his novella Flatland :

Not content with the natural neglect into which Sight Recognition was falling, they began boldly to demand the legal prohibition of all "monopolizing and aristocratic Arts" and the consequent abolition of all endowments for the studies of Sight Recognition, Mathematics, and Feeling.

* 1932 , , after assuming the presidency of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

I seem to see a great university, great in endowment , in land, in buildings, in equipment, but greater still, second to none, in its practical idealism, and its social usefulness.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-06, volume=408, issue=8843, page=68, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= The rise of smart beta , passage=Investors face a quandary. Cash offers a return of virtually zero in many developed countries; government-bond yields may have risen in recent weeks but they are still unattractive. Equities have suffered two big bear markets since 2000 and are wobbling again. It is hardly surprising that pension funds, insurers and endowments are searching for new sources of return.}}

Noun

(-)

Acute discernment or understanding; insight.

* 1904 , (Jack London), The Sea-Wolf , ch. 8:

"I understand," I said. "The fact is that you have the money." His face brightened. He seemed pleased at my perspicacity .

The human faculty or power to mentally grasp or understand clearly.

* 1856 , "Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey," The Quarterly Review , vol. 98, p. 458:

His very veneration for his father-in-law, combined as it is with a total want of the most ordinary perspicacity , is an additional disqualification.

* 1888 , "Review of La suggestion mentale'' by H. Bourru and P. Burot," ''The American Journal of Psychology , vol. 1 no. 3, p. 503:

As the former consists in the transmission of psychic states inappreciable to the normal perspicacity or senses, the transfer cannot pass through the medium of intelligence.

(obsolete) Keen eyesight.

* 1833 , John Harrison Curtis, A Treatise on the Physiology and Diseases of the Eye , London, Longman, p. 138:

Attentive consideration of the phenomena of vision has led to the invention of artificial aids by which the sight may be wonderfully strengthened and preserved, and man endowed at once with the perspicacity of the eagle or the minute scrutiny of the insect.