Word.ws English Dictionary

worldly-wise

worldly-wise adjective: experienced in the ways of the world; sophisticated and cosmopolitan.

Adjective

worldly-wise (comparative more worldly-wise, superlative most worldly-wise)

  1. Experienced in the ways of the world; sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
    • I had a natural African American impulse to let this worldlywise middle-aged black woman's maternalism wash over me. And as a post-civil rights African American, I assumed that it was a white audience's job to follow suit.2014 May 28, John McWhorter, “Saint Maya”, in The New Republic, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    worldwise

worldly-wise meaning in Malayalam and Kannada

worldly-wise in Malayalam

worldly, sophisticated, experienced
പ്രാപഞ്ചിക, പ്രാപഞ്ചികനായ, ഇഹലോകാസക്തിയുള്ള, സുഖഭോഗപ്രിയമുള്ള, ലൗകികജ്ഞ, ലൗകിക ജ്ഞാനമുള്ള

worldly-wise in Kannada

ಪ್ರಾಪಂಚಿಕ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆಯುಳ್ಳ, ಲೌಕಿಕ ತಿಳಿವಳಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿರುವ, ಲೋಕಜ್ಞಾನವುಳ್ಳ, ಅನುಭವಸ್ಥ

Synonyms of worldly-wise

Forms of worldly-wise

comparativemore worldly-wise
superlativemost worldly-wise
alternative formworldlywise
alternative formworldly wise

Origin of worldly-wise

Compare the synonym worldwise, which has cognates in various West-Germanic languages.

Questions about worldly-wise

What does worldly-wise mean?
Worldly-wise means experienced in the ways of the world; sophisticated and cosmopolitan.
What is worldly-wise in Malayalam?
Worldly-wise in Malayalam is പ്രാപഞ്ചിക, പ്രാപഞ്ചികനായ, ഇഹലോകാസക്തിയുള്ള. See Worldly-wise meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is worldly-wise?
Worldly-wise is an adjective.

Words near worldly-wise in the dictionary

  1. worldlinesses
  2. worldling
  3. worldlings
  4. worldly
  5. worldly wise
  6. worldly-wise
  7. worldlywise
  8. worldmaker
  9. worldmakers
  10. worldmaking
  11. worldmate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: worldly-wise (page history and authors); worldly-wise (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); worldly-wise (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “worldly-wise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worldly-wise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.