Word.ws English Dictionary

street-wise

street-wise is the alternative spelling of streetwise.

Meaning of streetwise

Adjective

streetwise (comparative more streetwise, superlative most streetwise)

  1. Having the necessary knack, personality and instinct for survival in rough, urban environments.
    • Where's the streetwise Hercules / to fight the rising odds?1986, Bonnie Tyler, “Holding Out for a Hero”, in Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire
  2. (US) Possessing a style that reflects urban life and microculture.
    • You could tell from the way he spat old Tupac lyrics, loitering in the corner with his homies, flipping that Yankees cap on his head like he couldn't give a damn that he was streetwise enough to melt Will Smith.

Forms of street-wise

comparativemore street-wise
superlativemost street-wise

Questions about street-wise

What is street-wise the alternative spelling of?
Street-wise is the alternative spelling of streetwise.

Words near street-wise in the dictionary

  1. street-smart
  2. street-smarter
  3. street-smartest
  4. street-sweeper
  5. street-sweepers
  6. street-wise
  7. streetable
  8. streetage
  9. streetages
  10. streetball
  11. streetballer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: street-wise (page history and authors); streetwise (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “street-wise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/street-wise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.