wise
/waɪz/
wise adjective: showing good judgement or the benefit of experience.
Adjective
wise (comparative wiser or more wise, superlative wisest or most wise)
- Showing good judgement or the benefit of experience.
- Storing extra food for the winter was a wise decision.
- They were considered the wise old men of the administration.
- Synonyms:
- hot
- Antonyms:
- improvident
- Disrespectful.
- Don't get wise with me!
- Aware, informed (to something).
- Be careful: the boss is wise to your plan to call out sick.
Verb (1)
wise (third-person singular simple present wises, present participle wising, simple past and past participle wised)
Noun (1)
wise (plural wises)
- Way, manner, or method.
- In such wise that all the beasts, great and small, came to the court save Reynard the Fox.1481, William Caxton, The History of Reynard the Fox^(https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Historye_of_Reynard_the_Foxe/capitulo_.primo._(2))
- Now the birth of Iesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Ioseph (before they came together) shee was found with childe of the holy Ghost.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 1:18
Verb (2)
wise (third-person singular simple present wises, present participle wising, simple past and past participle wised)
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Wise
Wise
- A surname.
- A township in Isabella County, Michigan, United States.
- An unincorporated community in Warren County, North Carolina, United States.
- A town, the county seat of Wise County, Virginia, United States.
Noun (2) capitalized: WISE
WISE (plural WISEs)
Proper noun (2) capitalized: WISE
WISE
- Acronym of Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (“a NASA infrared-wavelength astronomical space telescope that performed an all-sky astronomical survey with images in 3-22 μm wavelength bands”).
wise meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
wise in Hindi
- showing good judgement
- बुद्धिमान buddhimān, सयाना sayānā
wise in Tamil
- showing good judgement
- சாது cātu
wise in Marathi
- शहाणा
wise in Urdu
- showing good judgement
- بدھمان buddhimān, دانش مند dāniś-mand
More languagesFewer languages
- wise in Bengali
- জ্ঞানী, বিজ্ঞ
- wise in Telugu
- తెలివైన telivaina
- wise in Kannada
- ಜಾಣ jāṇa
- wise in Punjabi
- ਸਿਆਣੇ
- wise in Gujarati
- સમજદાર
- wise in Sanskrit
- कवि kavi
- wise in Nepali
- बुद्धिमानी, बुद्धिमान
- wise in Tagalog
- marunong
- wise in Arabic
- حَكِيم ḥakīm, فَطِن faṭin, فَطُن faṭun, عَاقِل ʕāqil
- wise in Malay
- bijaksana, bijak
- wise in Indonesian
- bijaksana, bijak, wicak
- wise in Persian
- دانا dânâ, خردمند xeradmand, زنیر zenir
- wise in Thai
- เฉลียวฉลาด chà-lǐao-chà-làat, ฉลาด chà-làat
- wise in Vietnamese
- khôn
- Kashmiri
- گاٹُل gāṭul, गाटुल gāṭul
Examples of wise in a sentence
- It was a difficult time, but I’m the wiser for it.
- I'm much the wiser for having had a difficult time like that.
- Giving your children a good education is a wise long-term investment.
Synonyms of wise
- hot
- wing-in-surface-effect
- wing in surface-effect
- wing-in-surface effect
- wing in surface effect
- astute
- clairvoyant
- deep
- frood
- grounded
13 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of wise
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | wiser |
| comparative | more wise |
| superlative | wisest |
| superlative | most wise |
| alternative form (obsolete) | wize |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | wises |
| present participle | wising |
| past participle | wised |
| past | wised |
| Noun | |
| plural | wises |
| plural | WISEs |
Origin of wise
From Middle English wys, wyse, from Old English wīs (“wise”), from Proto-Germanic *wīsaz (“knowledgeable, wise”), from Proto-Indo-European *wéydos (“seeing; knowledge”), from *weyd- (“to see”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian wiis (“wise”), Dutch wijs (“wise”), German weis, weise (“wise”), Low German wies (“wise; clever”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish vis (“wise”), Icelandic vís (“wise; certain”), Gothic *𐍅𐌴𐌹𐍃 (*weis, “wise”); also Irish fios (“knowledge; information”), Manx fys (“knowledge; information”), Scottish Gaelic fhios, fios (“knowledge; information”), Welsh gwys, gwŷs (“citation, summons”), Latin videō (“to look, perceive, see; to note, observe; to comprehend, understand”), Greek είδος (eídos, “form, kind, type”), Albanian vizë (“line, stripe, track; dash”), Latvian veids (“form, kind, mode, type”), Lithuanian veidas (“face; appearance, aspect, look”), Belarusian ве́даць (vjédacʹ, “to know”), Bulgarian вям (vjam, “to know”), Czech vědět (“to know”), Polish wiedzieć (“to know”), Russian ве́дать (védatʹ, “to know”), Serbo-Croatian vedeti, viedieti (“to know”), Slovak vedieť (“to know”), Slovene vedeti (“to know”), Ukrainian ві́дати (vídaty...
From Middle English wise, from Old English wīse, from Proto-Germanic *wīsō. Cognate with Dutch wijze, German Weise, Norwegian vis, Swedish visa, vis, Italian guisa, Spanish guisa. Compare -wise. Doublet of guise.
From Middle English wisen (“to advise, direct”), from Old English wisian (“to show the way, guide, direct”), from Proto-West Germanic *wīsōn, from Proto-Germanic *wīsōną (“to show the way, dispense knowledge”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“to know”). Compare Dutch wijzen (“to indicate, point out”), German weisen (“to show, indicate”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål vise (“to show”), Norwegian Nynorsk visa (“to show”).
Words formed from wise
- blow wise to
- crack wise
- get wise
- in like wise
- it is a wise child that knows his own father
- it is easy to be wise after the event
- not wise
- penny wise and pound foolish
- put someone wise
- seawise
- three wise men
- wisdom
- wise aleck
- wise apple
- wise-apple
- wise as an owl
- wiseass
- wise-ass
- wise beyond one's years
- wisecrack
- wise-cracking
- wise folk
- wise gal
- wise guy
- wise-guy
- wise head on young shoulders
- wise-hearted
- wise-like
- wiselike
- wiseling
- wise man
- wisen
- wiseness
- wise off
- wise up
- wise woman
- wizard
- word to the wise
- worldly wise
- you can't put a wise head on young shoulders
- -wise
- alwise
- nowise
- Wise County
- Wise Creek
- WISE ship
- WISE plane
- WISE airplane
- WISE aeroplane
- WISE aircraft
Phrases with wise
Words that rhyme with wise
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- capsize
- comprise
- guise
- revise
- abscise
- agrise
- apprise
- chastise
- despise
- flys
- guys
- lyse
- palatalize
- pies
- prise
- skies
- snies
- sties
- supplies
- surmise
- ties
- tries
- velarize
- aguise
- applies
- authorize
- ayes
- belies
- brise
- buys
- byes
- complies
- cries
- dies
- dries
- dyes
- excise
- eyes
- flies
- flyes
- four eyes
- frankenpies
- fries
- Frise
- hies
- highs
- home fries
- i's
Questions about wise
- What does wise mean?
- Wise means showing good judgement or the benefit of experience.
- What is wise in Hindi?
- Wise in Hindi is बुद्धिमान (buddhimān), सयाना (sayānā). See Wise meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is wise?
- Wise can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce wise?
- Wise is pronounced /waɪz/.
Words near wise in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wise (page history and authors); Wise (page history and authors); WISE (page history and authors); wise (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wise (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wise (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wise (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); wise (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wise.ogg.
Cite this entry: “wise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.