▪ I. sane, a.
(seɪn)
[ad. L. sānus healthy; cf. F. sain, Sp., It. sano, Pg. são.
The almost entire restriction in Eng. to the sense ‘mentally sound’ is due to the use in antithesis with insane, which (like the L. insānus, its source) always referred to mental condition.]
1. Of the body, its organs or functions: Healthy, sound, not diseased. rare.
| [1694 Motteux Rabelais v. Ep. by Lymosin 251 For in veracity these Times denote Morbs to the Sane, and Obits to th' ægrote.] |
| 1755 Johnson, Sane,..sound; healthy. Baynard wrote a poem on preserving the body in a sane and sound state. 1777 Mason Ep. to Dr. Shebbeare 135 As Pringle, to procure a sane secretion, Purges the primæ viæ of repletion. 1826 M. W. Shelley Last Man II. 231 Pestilence had become a part of our future..it became our part to..raise high the barrier between contagion and the sane. 1844 Kinglake Eothen xviii, He touches the gland, and finds the skin sane and sound. 1872 Browning Fifine lxxxviii, Mind, sound in body sane, Keeps thoughts apart from facts. |
2. Sound in mind; in one's senses; not mad. Also, of the mind: Not diseased.
| 1721 Bailey, Sane, sound, whole, in his Sences. 1809–10 Coleridge Friend (1818) I. 2 The activity of sane minds in healthful bodies. 1842 Dickens Amer. Notes iii. (1850) 32/1 Every patient is as freely trusted with the tools of his trade as if he were a sane man. 1884 Tennyson Falcon i. i. 46 To call a madman mad Will hardly help to make him sane again. |
b. of sane memory: see memory 2 b.
| 1628 Coke On Litt. i. 166 If Coparceners make partitions at ful age and vnmarried, and of sane memorie of Lands in Fee simple, it is good & firme for euer. |
3. Sensible, rational; free from delusive prejudices or fancies.
| 1843 A. Bethune Sc. Fireside Stor. 44 A drunken physician, is an anomaly from which every sane man must turn with feelings of dislike. 1859 Tennyson Enid 917 One of our noblest, our most valorous, Sanest and most obedient. 1899 [see imperialism 2]. 1908 Athenæum 29 Aug. 232/1 This is a sane and lucid study of twelve poets. |
▪ II. † sane, v. Obs.
[ad. L. sānāre, f. sān-us healthy: see sane a.]
trans. To cure, to heal.
| c 1386 Chaucer Pars. T. ¶973 For, as seith Ierom, by fasting be saned [Skeat prints saved; Pseudo-Jerome (Migne xxx. 616) has sanandæ] the vices of flesh, and by prayere the vices of the soule. c 1400 Hymn to Jesus Christ 40 in Relig. Pieces fr. Thornton MS. (1867) 84 He will..with his mercy sane my sore. c 1420 Anturs of Arth. 693 (Thornton MS.) Surgeones sanede [Douce MS. saued] thayme, sothely to saye. |