Word.ws English Dictionary

unwisdom

Syllables: un·wis·dom/(ˌ)ʌnˈwɪzdəm/US/ˌʌnˈwɪzdəm/

unwisdom noun: lack of wisdom; unwise action or conduct; folly, foolishness.

Noun

unwisdom (countable and uncountable, plural unwisdoms)

  1. (uncountable) Lack of wisdom; unwise action or conduct; folly, foolishness.
    • And all we conſyderynge her gracyous and charytable mynde, ſo unyuerſally, and conſyderyng the redyneſs of mercy and pyte in our Savyour Jheſu, may ſay, by lamentable complaynt of our unwyſedome, unto hym. Ah Domine! ſi fuiſſes hic—Ah my Lorde! yf thou had ben preſente, […]1509 (date delivered), Johan [i.e., John] Fisher, “A Mornynge Remembrance, had at the Moneth Minde of the Noble Prynces Margarete Countesse of Richmonde and Darbye, Moder unto Kynge Henry the...
    • Eccle[siasticus] 21. 15. […] Forſooth vnvviſedome is, &c. [i.e., which is plenteous in euill.] Sixtus [Pope Sixtus V] and the Louans, reading it amiſſe.1612, Thomas Iames [i.e., James], “The Third Part. The Varietie & Contrarietie of the Popish Bibles, Commonlie Called the Vulgar Bibles in Latine.”, in A Treatise of the Corruption of Scripture...
    Synonyms:
    ignorance, stupidity
  2. An instance of a lack of wisdom; a foolish act.
    • For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all manner of Unwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we way, the life-tree everywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing all things; […]1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Aristocracy of Talent”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book I (Proem), page 30
    • Between these two extremes, of human wisdom on the one hand, and human ignorance on the other, all manner of half wisdoms and unwisdoms, of appetites, passions, and self-denials, of convictions and prejudices, jostle one another in contending for partial and temporary dominion over the mind and the...1843 August 18, “Bathing”, in The London Medical Gazette; Being a Weekly Journal of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume II (New Series), London: […] Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, […]...
  3. (rare) A foolish or unwise being or force.
    • [W]hat great thing ever happened in this world, a world understood always to be made and governed by a Providence and Wisdom, not by an Unwisdom, without meaning somewhat?1839 (indicated as 1840), Thomas Carlyle, “Rights and Mights”, in Chartism, London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, page 42

Examples of unwisdom in a sentence

  • [T]he French government has committed the unwisdom of persecuting the Saint-Simonians.1832 April, [Thomas Perronet Thompson], “Art. I.—Doctrine de Saint-Simon. Exposition. Première Année. 1829.—Seconde Edition. Paris....
  • The Earth is good, bountifully sends food and increase; if man's unwisdom did not intervene and forbid.1839 (indicated as 1840), Thomas Carlyle, “Finest Peasantry in the World”, in Chartism, London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, page 27:
  • But as the sentence of Clement [Pope Clement VII] sealed the fate of the Nun of Kent [Elizabeth Barton], so the unwisdom of his successor [Pope Paul III] bore similarly fatal fruits.1856, James Anthony Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker...
  • He spoke of criminal carelessness and culpable stupidity; he spoke of the unwisdom of volunteering one's services as a guinea pig.1970 October, Larry Niven, “The Ring Floor”, in Ringworld, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published January 1976, →ISBN, page 135:

Synonyms of unwisdom

Antonyms

10 more antonymsFewer antonyms

Forms of unwisdom

pluralunwisdoms

Origin of unwisdom

PIE word *né From Middle English unwisdom (“lack of wisdom, foolishness; an instance of this”), from Old English unwīsdōm, from un- (prefix denoting absence or negation of something) + wīsdōm (“wisdom”) (from Proto-Germanic *wīsadōmaz (“wise judgment, wisdom”), from *wīsaz (“knowledgeable, wise”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know; to see”)) + *-dōmaz (suffix forming nouns denoting the condition or state of [the suffixed word]) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do; to place, put”))). The word was apparently obsolete in the 18th century, but was revived from the 19th century and possibly popularized by its use in the works of the Scottish author and philosopher Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881): see the quotations. By surface analysis, un- (prefix denoting a lack of something) + wisdom.

Words that rhyme with unwisdom

Questions about unwisdom

What does unwisdom mean?
Unwisdom means lack of wisdom; unwise action or conduct; folly, foolishness.
How do you use unwisdom in a sentence?
[T]he French government has committed the unwisdom of persecuting the Saint-Simonians.
What part of speech is unwisdom?
Unwisdom is a noun.
How do you pronounce unwisdom?
Unwisdom is pronounced /(ˌ)ʌnˈwɪzdəm/ (UK).
What is the plural of unwisdom?
The plural of unwisdom is unwisdoms.

Words near unwisdom in the dictionary

  1. unwiping
  2. unwire
  3. unwired
  4. unwires
  5. unwiring
  6. unwisdom
  7. unwisdoms
  8. unwise
  9. unwisely
  10. unwiseness
  11. unwiser

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unwisdom (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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