world

The subjective human experience, regarded collectively; human collective existence; existence in general; the reality we live in.

Noun

  1. The subjective human experience, regarded collectively; human collective existence; existence in general; the reality we live in.
    • In retrospect, the process of economic globalization has meant the end of the world as we knew it.
    • There will always be lovers, till the world’s end.
    • O wonder! / How many goodly creatures are there here! / How beauteous mankind is! / O brave new world, / That has such people in 't. - 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest:

    Synonyms: World

  2. The subjective human experience, regarded individually.
    • The period immediately following my divorce seemed like the end of my world.
    • He was my world! [said of a slain companion]
    • The world was awake to the 2nd of May, but Mayfair is not the world, and even the menials of Mayfair lie long abed. As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain,...
  3. A majority of people.
    • Running after God is the only life worth living. Even though the world believes that living for God is boring, we believe that there is nothing more exciting.
  4. The Universe.
  5. The Earth, especially in a geopolitical or cultural context, or as the physical planet.
    • People are dying of starvation all over the world.
    • “As the world turns, we know the bleakness of winter, the promise of spring, the fullness of summer and the harvest of autumn–the cycle of life is complete.” - quotation attributed to Irna Phillips.
    • Serene, smiling, enigmatic, she faced him with no fear whatever showing in her dark eyes.[…]She put back a truant curl from her forehead where it had sought egress to the world, and looked him full in the face now,...

    Synonyms: the earth Earth the globe God's green earth Sol III the planet

  6. Any of several possible scenarios concerning The Earth, either as the physical planet, or in a geopolitical, cultural or societal context.
    • Who would want to live in a world like this?
  7. alternative scenarios concerning The Earth, either as the physical planet, or in a geopolitical, cultural or societal context.
    • the best of all possible worlds. In the French original: le meilleur des mondes possibles. In German: die beste aller möglichen Welten. - 1710, Gottfried Leibniz, Essais de Théodicée sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de...
  8. A planet, especially one which is inhabited or inhabitable.
    • Our mission is to travel the galaxy and find new worlds.
    • A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour […] A time to sicken and to swoon, ⁠When Science reaches forth her arms ⁠To feel from world to world, and charms Her secret from the latest moon?’ - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson],...
    • And They said to Kib: “What are these things that move upon The Earth yet move not in circles like the Worlds, that regard like the Moon and yet they do not shine?” - 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th...

    1. (by extension) Any other astronomical body which may be inhabitable, such as a natural satellite.

  9. A very large extent of country.
    • the New World
  10. In various mythologies, cosmologies, etc., one of a number of separate realms or regions having different characteristics and occupied by different types of inhabitants.
    • Frey [...] clambered up on to the Hildskjalf, the throne from which Odin could see everything that happened across the nine worlds. - 2017, Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology, Bloomsbury Publishing, page 182:
  11. A fictional realm, such as a planet, containing one or multiple societies of beings, especially intelligent ones.
    • the world of Narnia
    • the Wizarding World of Harry Potter
    • a zombie world
  12. An individual or group perspective or social setting.
    • In the world of boxing, good diet is all-important.
    • Welcome to my world.
    • According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of...

    Synonyms: circle

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *weyh₁-? Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós Proto-Germanic *weraz Proto-Indo-European *h₂el- Proto-Indo-European *h₂életi Proto-Germanic *alaną Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Germanic *-þiz Proto-Germanic *aldiz Proto-Germanic *weraldiz Proto-West Germanic *weraldi Old English weorold Middle English world English world From Middle English world, from Old English weorold (“world”), from Proto-West Germanic *weraldi, from Proto-Germanic *weraldiz (“lifetime, human existence, world”, literally “age/era of man”), equivalent to wer (“man”) + eld (“age”). Eclipsed non-native Middle English mounde (“world”), from Old French monde, munde (“world”). Cognates Cognate with Scots warld (“world”), North Frisian Wārel, wäält, wråål (“world”), Saterland Frisian Waareld (“world”), West Frisian wrâld (“world”), Afrikaans wêreld (“world”), Bavarian Wöd (“world”), Dutch wereld...

Forms

worlds vurld

Hyponyms

First World Fourth World free world Majority World New World Old World Second World Third World umbworld underworld

Derived

after-world afterworld against the world a lie can run around the world before the truth can get its boots on all over the world all the world all the world and his wife all the world and Little Billing an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind antiworld aquaworld around the world artworld art world a world of beforehand in the world beforehand with the world best of both worlds Bidenworld book world braneworld brave new world build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door carry the world before one

Verb

  1. To consider or cause to be considered from a global perspective; to consider as a global whole, rather than making or focusing on national or other distinctions; compare globalize.
    • There are by now many feminisms (Tong, 1989; Humm, 1992). [...] They are in shifting alliance or contest with postmodern critiques, which at times seem to threaten the very category 'women' and its possibilities for a...
    • In a sense, the dictatorship was a failure of failure and, on that account, it was perhaps the exemplary system of control. Having in 1933 wagered on the worlding of the world in the regime's failure, Heidegger after...
  2. To make real; to make worldly.

Forms

worlds worlding worlded vurld

Related

🜨 ♁ global globalisation globalization