Wild

How to spell wild

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce wild

What does wild mean?

1. adjectiveLiving or growing in a natural state, not tamed or cultivated; or behaving in an uncontrolled, unrestrained way.
2. nounA natural, uncultivated region far from human settlement, usually preceded by 'the'.

Wild in a sentence

• adjective

  The trail was lined with wild raspberries that nobody had planted.

• noun

  The rescued wolves were eventually released back into the wild.

• adjective

  The crowd went wild when the band returned for an encore.

• noun

  Living in the wild for a month taught her to ration supplies carefully.

Where does wild come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends straight from the Old English wilde, which meant 'in the natural state, uncultivated, undomesticated', and it has been part of English since the earliest written records. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close relatives such as the Dutch wild and the German wild, all tracing back to a shared Proto-Germanic form that described animals and land beyond human control. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from plants and beasts living free to people and behaviour that are unruly, excited, or out of control, and later still to figurative uses like a wild guess. The spelling has stayed admirably stable, keeping the long 'i' sound that the silent magic of the final consonant cluster preserves. Because it is a short, native Anglo-Saxon word, it almost never trips up adult spellers, which is exactly why it has survived unchanged for more than a thousand years.

How the word is built

• wild (from Old English wilde: in a natural, untamed state); a single unanalysable root with no prefix or suffix