Word.ws English Dictionary

worldly wise

worldly wise is the alternative spelling of worldly-wise.

Meaning of worldly-wise

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

Forms of worldly wise

comparativemore worldly wise
superlativemost worldly wise

Questions about worldly wise

What is worldly wise the alternative spelling of?
Worldly wise is the alternative spelling of worldly-wise.

Words near worldly wise in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: worldly wise (page history and authors); worldly-wise (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: “worldly wise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worldly_wise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.