wilderness
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: agriculture
business
horticulture
lifestyle
Etymology: From Middle English wildernes, wildernesse (“desolate or uninhabited place, desolation”) [and other forms], and then either:
* from Middle English wilderne (“deserted or uninhabited place, wilderness; land not yet settled”) [and other forms] (from Old English wilddeōren (“savage, wild”); see below) + -nes, -nesse (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting qualities or states); or
* from Old English *wildēornes, *wilddēornes, either from wilddēor (“wild animal”) [and other forms] or wilddēoren (“savage, wild”) (from wilddēor + -en (suffix forming adjectives with the sense ‘consisting of; material made of’)) + -nes (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting qualities or states).
Wilddēor is derived from wilde (“savage, wild”) (ultimately either from Proto-Indo-European *wel-, *welw- (“hair, wool; ear of corn, grass; forest”), or *gʷʰel- (“wild”)) + dēor (“beast, wild animal”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwes- (“to breathe; breath; soul, spirit; creature”)).
The English word is cognate with Danish vildnis (“wilderness”), German Wildernis, Wildnis (“wilderness”), Middle Dutch wildernisse (“wilderness”) (modern Dutch wildernis (“wilderness”)), Middle Low German wildernisse (“wilderness”) (German Low German Wildernis (“wilderness”)), Saterland Frisian Wüüldernis (“wilderness”), West Frisian wyldernis (“wilderness”).
Sense 3.3 (“situation of disfavour or lack of recognition”) is a reference to Numbers 14:32–33 in the Bible (King James Version; spelling modernized): “But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcasses be wasted in the wilderness.”
Inflected forms:
form: wildernesses
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: wildernesse
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: Uncultivated and unsettled land in its natural state inhabited by wild animals and with vegetation growing wild; (countable) a tract of such land; a waste or wild.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: For ſtill he traueild through wide waſtfull ground, / That nought but deſert wilderneſſe ſhewed all around.
O my poore kingdome! ſicke with ciuill blowes: / VVhen that my care could not withhold thy riots, / VVhat wilt thou do when riot is thy care? / O thou wilt be a wilderneſſe againe, / Peopled with woolues, thy old inhabitants.
Behold, as wilde aſſes in the deſart, goe they foorth to their worke, riſing betimes for a pray: the wildernes yeeldeth food for them; and for their children.
Strange it is, that he reporteth of the miraculous workes of ſome of them, that they may ſeeme (as he ſaith) incarnate Deuils: […] ſome dwell amongſt men, ſome by themſelues apart, and ſome in Wilderneſſe: […]
Thus they went on talking of what they had ſeen by the way; and ſo made that way eaſie, which would otherwiſe, no doubt, have been tedious to them: for now they went through a Wilderneſs.
Oh for a lodge in ſome vaſt wilderneſs, / Some boundleſs contiguity of ſhade, / Where rumour of oppreſſion and deceit, / Of unſucceſsful or ſucceſsful war / Might never reach me more.
Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.
Here they ascended, and anon appeared to descend in the same direction, finding only boundless wildernesses, and varied combinations of tangled woodland scenery.
[…] I can conceive nothing more likely to set the youthful blood into a flow, than a wild wood life of the kind, and the range of a magnificent wilderness, abounding with game, and fruitful of adventure.
Down from the bastion'd walls we dropt by night, / And flying reach'd the frontier: then we crost / To a livelier land; and so by town and thorpe, / And tilth, and blowing bosks of wilderness, / We gain'd the mother-city thick with towers, / And in the imperial palace found the king.
gloss: A place other than land (for example, the air or sea) that is uncared for, and therefore devoted to disorder or wildness.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
countable
examples: For now I ſtand as one vpon a rocke, / Inuirond with a wildernes of ſea, / VVho markes the vvaxing tide, grovv vvaue by vvaue, / Expecting euer vvhen ſome enuious ſurge, / VVill in his briniſh bovvels ſvvallow him.
[W]hat / Is this blue wilderness of interminable / Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen / The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden?
gloss: An ornamental part of a garden or park cultivated with trees and often a maze to evoke a natural wilderness.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
countable
examples: And now with nerves new-brac'd and ſpirits chear'd / We tread the wilderneſs, whoſe well-roll'd walks / With curvature of ſlow and eaſy ſweep, / Deception innocent—give ample ſpace / To narrow bounds.
gloss: Unrefinedness; wildness.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
obsolete
uncountable
examples: What ſhould I thinke, / Heauen ſhield my Mother plaid my Father faire: / For ſuch a warped ſlip of wilderneſſe / Nere iſſu'd from his blood.
Theſe paths & Bowers doubt not but our joynt hands / Will keep from Wilderneſs with eaſe, as wide / As we need walk, till younger hands ere long / Aſſiſt us: […]
gloss: Chiefly followed by of: a bewildering flock or throng; a large, often jumbled, collection of things.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: Tuball. One of them ſhewed me a ring that hee had of your daughter for a Monkey. / Shy[lock]. Out vpon her: thou tortur'ſt me Tuball, it was my Turkies, I had it of Leah when I was a Batchellor: I would not haue giuen it for a wilderneſſe of Monkies.
[T]he virgins thou haſt rob'd of all their wiſhes, / blaſted their blowing hopes, turn'd their ſongs, / their mirthful Marriage-ſongs to Funerals, / the Land thou haſt left a wilderneſſe of wretches.
Thir glittering Tents he paſsd, and now is come / Into the bliſsful field, through Groves of Myrrhe, / And flouring Odours, Caſſia, Nard, and Balme; / A Wilderneſs of ſweets; […]
And as she treats all things, and ne'er retreats / From any thing, this Epic will contain / A wilderness of the most rare conceits, / Which you might elsewhere hope to find in vain.
Tortured by these thoughts he carried monotony with him, through the rushing landscape, and hurried headlong, not through a rich and varied country, but a wilderness of blighted plans and gnawing jealousies.
He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on the shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she was again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother's room.
gloss: A place or situation that is bewildering and in which one may get lost.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: As I walk'd through the wilderneſs of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Denn; And I laid me down in that place to ſleep: And as I ſlept I dreamed a Dream.
If solitude succeed to grief, / Release from pain is slight relief; / The vacant bosom's wilderness / Might thank the pang that made it less.
Where to go? Still somewhere, anywhere! still going on; but where! She thought of the only other time she had been lost in the wide wilderness of London—though not lost as now—and went that way. To the home of Walter's uncle.
The dim, dusty room, with the busts staring down from the tall book-cases, the cosy chairs, the globes, and, best of all, the wilderness of books, in which she could wander where she liked, made the library a region of bliss to her.
gloss: Preceded by in the: a situation of disfavour or lack of recognition; (specifically, politics) of a politician, political party, etc.: a situation of being out of office.
pos: noun
tags: countable
figuratively
uncountable
examples: After the firm establishment of the Irish Free State, [Winston] Churchill would continue to hold office until the depression. Then, he found himself in the political wilderness. But, unlike [David] Lloyd George, he would not find himself tripping to Berchtesgaden to prostrate himself before Adolf Hitler in admiration. Perhaps he had learned something from Michael Collins—never bend the knee to the tyrant.
Synonyms: bushland
wild
wilderness
wildland
Related words: rewilding
wildness
remote place
Derived words: Bogong Peaks Wilderness
Byadbo Wilderness
call in the wilderness
cry in the wilderness
Jagungal Wilderness
nonwilderness
Pilot Wilderness
The Devils Wilderness
voice calling in the wilderness
voice crying in the wilderness
voice in the wilderness
wilderness camp
wilderness program
Wilderness Road
wilderness therapy
wilderness treatment center
Translations: