savage [ME] According to the origin of the name, savages live in woods. Savage derives from Latin silva ‘a wood’, the source also of the literary word sylvan [M16th]. The overtones of savage are usually negative, suggesting violence and cruelty, but in the later 18th century the French writer and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) conceived the idea of the noble savage, an idealized being without the corrupting influence of civilization, showing the natural goodness of humankind.