different between world vs dreamtime

English

Alternative forms

• vurld (Bermuda)

Etymology

From Middle English world, weoreld, from Old English weorold (“world”), from Proto-West Germanic *weraldi, from Proto-Germanic *weraldiz (“lifetime, human existence, world”, literally “age/era of man”), equivalent to wer (“man”) +? eld (“age”). Cognate with Scots warld (“world”), Saterland Frisian Waareld (“world”), West Frisian wrâld (“world”),Afrikaans wêreld (“world”), Dutch wereld (“world”), Low German Werld (“world”), German Welt (“world”), Norwegian Bokmål verden (“world”), Norwegian Nynorsk verd (“world”), Swedish värld (“world”), Icelandic veröld (“the world”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??ld/
• (General American, Canada) enPR: wûrld, IPA^(key): /w?ld/
• (General New Zealand) enPR: wûrld, IPA^(key): /w??ld/, [w????d?]
• Rhymes: -??(?)ld
• Homophones: whirled, whorled (both only in accents with the wine-whine merger and the fern-fir-fur merger)

Noun

world (countable and uncountable, plural worlds)

1. (with "the") Human collective existence; existence in general.
2. The Universe.
3. (uncountable, with "the") The Earth.

   Synonyms: the earth, Earth, the globe, God's green earth, Sol III

   • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes. […] She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now, drawing a deep breath which caused the round of her bosom to lift the lace at her throat.

   • 2018, VOA Learning English > China's Melting Glacier Brings Visitors, Adds to Climate Concerns

     She says the Third Pole is one of the world’s largest sources of fresh drinking water.

4. (countable) A planet, especially one which is inhabited or inhabitable.
   • 2007 September 27, Marc Rayman (interviewee), “NASA's Ion-Drive Asteroid Hunter Lifts Off”, National Public Radio:

     I think many people think of asteroids as kind of little chips of rock. But the places that Dawn is going to really are more like worlds.

   1. (by extension) Any other astronomical body which may be inhabitable, such as a natural satellite.
5. A very large extent of country.

   the New World

6. (fiction, speculation) A realm, such as a planet, containing one or multiple societies of beings, especially intelligent ones.

   the world of Narnia; the Wizarding World of Harry Potter; a zombie world

7. An individual or group perspective or social setting.

   Synonym: circle

   Welcome to my world.
8. (computing) The part of an operating system distributed with the kernel, consisting of the shell and other programs.
9. (video games) A subdivision of a game, consisting of a series of stages or levels that usually share a similar environment or theme.

   Have you reached the boss at the end of the ice world?

   There's a hidden warp to the next world down this pipe.

10. (tarot) The twenty-second trump or major arcana card of the tarot.
11. (informal, singular or plural, followed by "of") A great amount.

    Taking a break from work seems to have done her a world of good.

    You're going to be in a world of trouble when your family finds out.

12. (archaic) Age, era.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

world (third-person singular simple present worlds, present participle worlding, simple past and past participle worlded)

1. To consider or cause to be considered from a global perspective; to consider as a global whole, rather than making or focussing on national or other distinctions; compare globalise.
   • 1996, Jan Jindy Pettman, Worlding Women: A feminist international politics, pages ix-x:

     There are by now many feminisms (Tong, 1989; Humm, 1992). [...] They are in shifting alliance or contest with postmodern critiques, which at times seem to threaten the very category 'women' and its possibilities for a feminist politics. These debates inform this attempt at worlding women—moving beyond white western power centres and their dominant knowledges (compare Spivak, 1985), while recognising that I, as a white settler-state woman, need to attend to differences between women, too.

   • 2005, James Phillips, Heidegger's Volk: Between National Socialism and Poetry, published by Stanford University Press, ?ISBN:

     In a sense, the dictatorship was a failure of failure and, on that account, it was perhaps the exemplary system of control. Having in 1933 wagered on the worlding of the world in the regime's failure, Heidegger after the war can only rue his opportunistic hopes for an exposure of the ontological foundations of control.

2. To make real; to make worldly.

See also

• global
• globalisation, globalization

Anagrams

• l-word

Middle English

Alternative forms

• worild, wordle, werld, woreld, worlde, woruld, weoreld

Etymology

From Old English woruld, worold, from Proto-West Germanic *weraldi, from Proto-Germanic *weraldiz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /wurld/, /w?rld/

Noun

world (plural worldes)

1. The world, the planet (i.e., Earth)
2. A dimension, realm, or existence, especially human existence.
3. The trappings and features of human life.
4. The political entities of the world.
5. The people of the world, especially when judging someone.
6. An age, era or epoch.
7. The universe, the totality of existence.

Descendants

• English: world
• Scots: warld

References

• “world, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-20.