worldwise

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Middle English worldwis, from Old English woruldwīs (“worldwise, worldly-wise, learned”), equivalent to world +‎ wise.

Adjective

worldwise (comparative more worldwise, superlative most worldwise)

  1. Knowledgeable about the world; worldly-wise; sophisticated; experienced.
    • 1671, Daniel Cable (translator), Of Natural and Supernatural Things by Basilius Valentinus, London: Moses Pitt, Chapter 3, p. 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, The White Company, London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1909, Chapter 12, p. 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, London: John Lane, p. 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
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