wise man

Noun

wise man (plural wise men)

1. A man who is wise.
   • That is the reason, why some say, that the wiseman liveth as long as he ought, and not so long as he can.1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC
   • But where's that wiseman, that would not be I, / If she would not deny?1635, John Donne, The Triple Foole
2. A man who is a sage or seer.
   • Steady old Väinämöinen / the everlasting wise man [translating tietäjä] / was driving along his roads / pacing out his ways / in those glades of Väinö-land / on the Kalevala heaths.1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section III
3. A magus or wizard, now especially one of the three biblical magi.
   • Some of the other charms employed by the wise men had a more tangled pedigree.1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 174