Word.ws English Dictionary

streetwise

streetwise adjective: having the necessary knack, personality and instinct for survival in rough, urban environments.

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.

Synonyms of streetwise

Forms of streetwise

comparativemore streetwise
superlativemost streetwise
alternative formstreet-wise

Origin of streetwise

From street + -wise.

Words formed from streetwise

Questions about streetwise

What does streetwise mean?
Streetwise means having the necessary knack, personality and instinct for survival in rough, urban environments.
What part of speech is streetwise?
Streetwise is an adjective.

Words near streetwise in the dictionary

  1. streetwards
  2. streetway
  3. streetways
  4. streetwear
  5. streetwisdom
  6. streetwise
  7. streetwiseness
  8. streetwork
  9. streetworker
  10. streetworkers
  11. streetworks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

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