different between world vs wilderness

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.

English

Etymology

From Middle English wildernes, wildernesse (“uninhabited, uncultivated, or wild territory; desolate land; desert; (figuratively) depopulated or devastated place; state of devastation or ruin; human experience and life”) [and other forms], and then either:

• from Middle English wilderne (“deserted or uninhabited place, wilderness; land not yet settled”) [and other forms] (from Old English wildde?ren (“savage, wild”); see below) + -nes, -nesse (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting qualities or states); or
• from Old English *wild?ornes, *wildd?ornes, probably from wildd?or (“wild animal”) [and other forms] or more likely from wildde?ren (“savage, wild”) (from wildd?or + -en (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘consisting of; material made of’)) + -nes (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting qualities or states).

Wildd?or is derived from wilde (“savage, wild”) (ultimately either from Proto-Indo-European *wel-, *welw- (“hair, wool; ear of corn, grass; forest”), or *g??el- (“wild”)) + d?or (“beast, wild animal”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *d?wes- (“to breathe; breath; soul, spirit; creature”)).

The English word is cognate with Danish vildnis (“wilderness”), German Wildernis, Wildnis (“wilderness”), Middle Dutch wildernisse (“wilderness”) (modern Dutch wildernis (“wilderness”)), Middle Low German wildernisse (“wilderness”) (German Low German Wildernis (“wilderness”)), Saterland Frisian Wüüldernis (“wilderness”), West Frisian wyldernis (“wilderness”).

Sense 3.3 (“situation of disfavour or lack of recognition”) is a reference to Numbers 14:32–33 in the Bible (King James Version; spelling modernized): “But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.”

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?w?ld?n?s/, /-n?s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?w?ld?n?s/
• Hyphenation: wild?er?ness

Noun

wilderness (countable and uncountable, plural wildernesses)

1. (uncountable) Uncultivated and unsettled land in its natural state inhabited by wild animals and with vegetation growing wild; (countable) a tract of such land; a waste or wild.

   Synonyms: (chiefly Australia) bushland, wasteness, (both obsolete) wastness, wildland, wilds
2. (by extension)
   1. (countable) A place other than land (for example, the air or sea) that is uncared for, and therefore devoted to disorder or wildness.
   2. (countable, horticulture) An ornamental part of a garden or park cultivated with trees and often a maze to evoke a natural wilderness.
   3. (uncountable, obsolete) Unrefinedness; wildness.
3. (countable, figuratively)
   1. Chiefly followed by of: a bewildering flock or throng; a large, often jumbled, collection of things.
   2. A place or situation that is bewildering and in which one may get lost.
   3. Often preceded by in the: a situation of disfavour or lack of recognition; (specifically, politics) of a politician, political party, etc.: a situation of being out of office.

Alternative forms

• wildernesse (obsolete)

Derived terms

Translations

References

Further reading

• wilderness on Wikipedia.Wikipedia