wilderness

Meaning

Noun

• Uncultivated and unsettled land in its natural state inhabited by wild animals and with vegetation growing wild; a tract of such land; a waste or wild.

Origin

• From Middle English wildernes, wildernesse, and then either:
• ; or
• ) + -nes.
• Wilddēor is derived from wilde (ultimately either from Proto-Indo-European *wel-, *welw-, or *gʷʰel-) + dēor (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwes-).
• The English word is cognate with Danish vildnis, German Wildernis, Wildnis, Middle Dutch wildernisse (modern Dutch wildernis), Middle Low German wildernisse (German Low German Wildernis), Saterland Frisian Wüüldernis, West Frisian wyldernis.
• 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.”