Word.ws English Dictionary

Wessex

UK/ˈwɛs.ɪks/

Wessex proper noun: one of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, existing between the 6th and 9th centuries, and comprising most of England south of the Thames.

Proper noun

Wessex

  1. (historical) One of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, existing between the 6th and 9th centuries, and comprising most of England south of the Thames.
    • Grey-stoned and dun-roofed, it stood within hail of the Wessex border, and almost with the tip of one small toe within it, at the northernmost point of the crinkled line along which the leisurely Thames strokes the fields of that ancient kingdom.1894 December – 1895 November, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], published 1896, →OCLC
  2. The West Country, a geographic area in the south west of England.
    • And I said I’d couch-surfed around Wessex and Wales and had a good time, and the train ride from Devon to Scotland was long and smoky […]2001, James R. Babb, River Music: A Fly Fisher’s Four Seasons, →ISBN, page 154
    • Crop circles are found in other parts of the globe, but not many. The 55 that have been spotted so far this year in Britain – mostly in Wessex – are more than half the total number observed throughout the world.2010 August 19, Clive Aslet, “Crop circles: The mystery that keeps us going round in circles”, in The Daily Telegraph

Origin of Wessex

From Middle English Westsex, from Old English Westseaxan (literally “West Saxons”), which stood for both Wessex and its people. The use of Wessex in a modern context for the West Country was popularised by Thomas Hardy, who used the term for his semi-fictional setting based on the region.

Words formed from Wessex

Words that rhyme with Wessex

Questions about Wessex

What does Wessex mean?
Wessex means one of the seven major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, existing between the 6th and 9th centuries, and comprising most of England south of the Thames.
What part of speech is Wessex?
Wessex is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Wessex?
Wessex is pronounced /ˈwɛs.ɪks/ (UK).

Words near Wessex in the dictionary

  1. Wesselmans
  2. Wessels
  3. wesselsite
  4. Wesselton
  5. Wesseltons
  6. Wessex
  7. Wessex Saddleback
  8. Wessexian
  9. Wessexians
  10. Wessexman
  11. Wessexmen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Wessex (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: “Wessex.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wessex. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.