worldly
/ˈwɜː(ɹ)ldli/
worldly adjective: concerned with human or earthly matters, physical as opposed to spiritual.
Adjective
worldly (comparative worldlier or more worldly, superlative worldliest or most worldly)
- Concerned with human or earthly matters, physical as opposed to spiritual.
- These attributes, in spite of poverty and the strict integrity which shut him out from the more worldly successes, attracted to him many admirable persons, as naturally as sweet herbs draw bees, and as naturally he gave them the honey into which fifty years of hard experience had distilled no...1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part Two, Chapter Twenty-four: Gossip
- Thirst of enjoyment, therefore, should be given up. Indeed, true happiness belongeth to them that have cast off their thirst for worldly objects--a thirst which is difficult to be thrown off by the wicked and the sinful, which faileth not with the failing life, and which is truly the fatal disease...c. 1883-1896, Vyasa, Kisari Mohan Ganguli (translator), The Mahabharata, Book 1: Adi Parva, Section LXXXV
- Antonyms:
- otherworldly, spiritual
- Concerned with secular rather than sacred matters.
- Synonyms:
- lay, profane, temporal, areligious, civil, earthly, irreligious, laicist, laicistic, mundane
- Sophisticated, especially because of surfeit; versed in the ways of the world.
- Homer and Marge have to try to explain things to children who are too worldly to fall for most excuses, the explanation trails off, and what could be a pleasant family outing to solve it all turns out to be yet another excuse for self-involvement when one public humiliation doesn’t outweigh the...2016 January 24, Les Chappell, “TV: Review: The Simpsons (Classic), “Natural Born Kissers” (season nine, episode 25, originally aired 05/17/1998)”, in The Onion AV Club
- Synonyms:
- sophisticated, street-smart
- Antonyms:
- naive
Adverb
worldly (comparative more worldly, superlative most worldly)
- In a worldly manner.
- Synonyms:
- secularly, unspiritually, worldlily
worldly meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
worldly in Hindi
- concerned with the human, earthly or physical rather than spiritual
- लौकिक laukik, सांसारिक sānsārik, भौमिक bhaumik
- concerned with the secular rather than sacred
- लौकिक laukik
- versed in the ways of the world
- सांसारिक sānsārik
worldly in Marathi
- सांसारिक
worldly in Urdu
- worldly, materialistic
- دنیاوی dunyāvī
worldly in Bengali
- worldly
- ইহ iho
- worldly, mundane, temporal
- দুনিয়াবী duniyābi
More languagesFewer languages
- worldly in Telugu
- లౌక్యము laukyamu, లౌకికము laukikamu
- worldly in Malayalam
- ലൗകിക, പ്രാപഞ്ചിക, വൈദികമല്ലാത്ത
- worldly in Kannada
- ಪ್ರಾಪಂಚಿಕ, ಐಹಿಕ, ಲೌಕಿಕ, ಭೌತಿಕ
- worldly in Gujarati
- સાંસારિક, દુન્યવી
- worldly in Odia
- ପ୍ରାକୃତିକ prākrutika
- worldly in Sanskrit
- लौक्य laukyà, ऐहिक aihika
- worldly in Nepali
- सांसारिक
- worldly in Tagalog
- makamundo
- worldly in Arabic
- دُنْيَوِيّ dunyawiyy
Examples of worldly in a sentence
- The conviction that my personal, worldly life was something real and good constituted the misunderstanding, the obstacle, that prevented me from comprehending Jesus doctrine.1889, Leo Tolstoy, chapter VIII, in Huntington Smith, transl., My Religion:
- The old hypocrite, Tartuffe or Pecksniff, was a man whose aims were really worldly and practical, while he pretended that they were religious.1910, G. K. Chesterton, What's Wrong with the World, Chapter 1, part 3:
Synonyms of worldly
12 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of worldly
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | worldlier |
| comparative | more worldly |
| superlative | worldliest |
| superlative | most worldly |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more worldly |
| superlative | most worldly |
Origin of worldly
From Middle English worldly, worldlich, wordly (adjective), from Old English woruldlīċ, worldlīċ, weoroldlīċ (“worldly; earthly; temporal; mundane; secular”), from Proto-Germanic *weraldilīkaz, equivalent to world + -ly. Cognate with Dutch wereldlijk (“worldly; secular”), German Low German weltlik (“worldly”), German weltlich (“worldly”), Danish verdslig (“worldly”), Swedish världslig (“worldly”), Icelandic veraldlegur (“worldly; secular”).
From Middle English worldly, worldliche, wordly (adverb), from Old English woroldlīċe, weoroldlīċe; equivalent to world + -ly (adverbial suffix).
Words formed from worldly
Phrases with worldly
Words that rhyme with worldly
Questions about worldly
- What does worldly mean?
- Worldly means concerned with human or earthly matters, physical as opposed to spiritual.
- What is worldly in Hindi?
- Worldly in Hindi is लौकिक (laukik), सांसारिक (sānsārik), भौमिक (bhaumik). See Worldly meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use worldly in a sentence?
- The conviction that my personal, worldly life was something real and good constituted the misunderstanding, the obstacle, that prevented me from comprehending Jesus doctrine.
- What part of speech is worldly?
- Worldly can be an adjective or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce worldly?
- Worldly is pronounced /ˈwɜː(ɹ)ldli/.
Words near worldly in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: worldly (page history and authors); worldly (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); دنیاوی (Urdu) (page history and authors); ইহ (Bengali) (page history and authors); లౌకికము (Telugu) (page history and authors); worldly (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); worldly (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); worldly (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ପ୍ରାକୃତିକ (Odia) (page history and authors); ऐहिक (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); worldly (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-worldly.ogg.
Cite this entry: “worldly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worldly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.