Worldly

How to spell worldly

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce worldly

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does worldly mean?

1. adjectiveExperienced in and knowledgeable about the practical affairs of life and society.
2. adjectiveConcerned with material possessions and earthly affairs rather than spiritual ones.

Worldly in a sentence

• Years of travel had made her remarkably worldly and self-assured.

• The monk renounced worldly wealth to live in the monastery.

• His worldly manner reassured the nervous new recruits at the firm.

• She warned that worldly ambitions had crowded out his sense of purpose.

Where does worldly come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from Old English, where the noun was woruld, a compound that originally meant something like 'age of man' or 'human existence', built from wer 'man' and a root tied to 'age' or 'era'. From that noun came the adjective woruldlic, joining woruld with the familiar suffix -lic, the ancestor of modern -ly, meaning 'having the nature of'. In early use it leaned heavily on the religious contrast between earthly life and the life of the spirit, so 'worldly' meant secular, material, and concerned with this life rather than the next. Over time it broadened to describe a person who is sophisticated and experienced in the practical ways of society. The spelling trap survives from the noun itself: the silent-feeling 'l' in 'world' is easy to drop, leaving the misspelling 'wordly'.

How the word is built

• world (the earth, human existence; from Old English woruld)
• -ly (adjective suffix meaning 'having the quality of')