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Saunt is a posthumous honorific title, a contraction of "savant", given to notable thinkers from the mathic world. It is meant to suggest "saint" from Earth terminology, as saunts are often the founders of mathic orders and concents and are spoken of with a certain reverence.

Saunthood is typically bestowed upon great thinkers who made major discoveries, and also upon founders as noted above. It is not uncommon for saunts to have been "Thrown Back" (ie. subject to Anathem) before they are recognized as saunts. The recognition is typically posthumous, and recognition is given for scientific martyrdom.

Recognition as a saunt seems to be by consensus. Immediately after various avout witness a speely of Orolo's death, where he remains in the path of a volcanic flow in order to save the dead body of a Geometer at Ecba, many of them whisper "Saunt Orolo," impressed by his martyrdom. This seems to be readily accepted in the mathic community, though Orolo himself was not known for any special original research or the founding of an order.

In some cases, the title of Saunt has been bestowed on remarkable seculars, particularly from deep history.

Dictionary Entry[]

Saunt
1. In New Orth, a term of veneration applied to great thinkers, almost always posthumously. Note: this word was accepted only in the Millennial Orth Convox of A.R. 3000. Prior to then it was considered a misspelling of Savant. In stone, where only upper-case letters are used, this is rendered SAVANT (or ST. if the stonecarver is running out of space). During the decline of standards in the decades that followed the Third Sack, a confusion between the letters U and V grew commonplace (the “lazy stonecarver problem”), and many began to mistake the word for SAUANT. This soon degenerated to saunt (now accepted) and even sant (still deprecated). In written form, St. may be used as an abbreviation for any of these. Within some traditional orders it is still pronounced “Savant” and obviously the same is probably true among Millenarians.
The Dictionary, 4th Edition, A.R. 3000
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