worldwise

See also: world-wise

English

Alternative forms

• world-wise

Etymology

From Middle English worldwis, from Old English woruldwīs (“worldwise, worldly-wise, learned”), from Proto-West Germanic [Term?]; compare Middle Dutch wereltwijs (Dutch wereldwijs), Old High German weraltwīs. By surface analysis, world +‎ wise.

Adjective

worldwise (comparative more worldwise, superlative most worldwise)

1. Knowledgeable about the world; worldly-wise; sophisticated; experienced.
   • 1671, Basilius Valentinus, chapter 3, in Daniel Cable, transl., Of Natural and Supernatural Things‎^[1], London: Moses Pitt, page 50:

     Those who are highly conceited, illuminated, and world-wise, hate, envy, scandalize, defame and persecute this Mystery to the utmost Rind, or innermost Kernel, which hath its beginning out of the Center […]

   • 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 12, in The White Company‎^[2], London: Smith, Elder & Co., published 1909, page 141:

     An older and more world-wise man might have been puzzled by her varying moods, her sudden prejudices, her quick resentment at all constraint and authority.

   • 1919, Saki, “The Purple of the Balkan Kings”, in The Toys of Peace and Other Papers‎^[3], London: John Lane, page 281:

     Luttpold Wolkenstein, financier and diplomat on a small, obtrusive, self-important scale, sat in his favoured café in the world-wise Habsburg capital, confronted with the Neue Freie Presse and the cup of cream-topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolo had just brought him.

   • 1994, U.S. News & World Report:

     Experience that’s worldwide and worldwise. It’s a difference that’s helped us make friends with a world full of travelers.

Derived terms

• worldwisdom