Etymology Alteration of save, sabi (“to know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese sabe (“[she/he] knows”), from saber (“to know”), from Latin sapere (“to taste; to know”). First appears c. 1785 in a dictionary by Francis Grose, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”. The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.
That such a safe adaptation could come of The Hunger Games speaks more to the trilogy’s commercial ascent than the book’s actual content, which is audacious and savvy in its dark calculations.2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “The Hunger Games”, in AV Club, archived from the original on 24 Mar 2012:
Etymology Alteration of save, sabi (“to know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese sabe (“[she/he] knows”), from saber (“to know”), from Latin sapere (“to taste; to know”). First appears c. 1785 in a dictionary by Francis Grose, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”. The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.
He's probably a perfect technician as a surgeon, but he knows you get only what you grab. Think of the years it's taken me to learn what he savvied all the time!1925, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XXIV, in Arrowsmith, Harcourt Brace & Co., page 280:
savvy
noun
Etymology Alteration of save, sabi (“to know”) (in English-based creoles and pidgins), from Portuguese sabe (“[she/he] knows”), from saber (“to know”), from Latin sapere (“to taste; to know”). First appears c. 1785 in a dictionary by Francis Grose, as a noun, “practical sense, intelligence”; also a verb, “to know, to understand”. The adjective is first recorded 1905, from the noun.