| Library / English Dictionary |
WISDOM
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight
Synonyms:
wisdom; wiseness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("wisdom" is a kind of...):
trait (a distinguishing feature of your personal nature)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wisdom"):
judiciousness; sagaciousness; sagacity (the trait of forming opinions by distinguishing and evaluating)
initiation; knowledgeability; knowledgeableness (wisdom as evidenced by the possession of knowledge)
diplomacy; statecraft; statesmanship (wisdom in the management of public affairs)
discernment; discretion (the trait of judging wisely and objectively)
Antonym:
folly (the trait of acting stupidly or rashly)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The quality of being prudent and sensible
Synonyms:
soundness; wisdom; wiseness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("wisdom" is a kind of...):
good; goodness (that which is pleasing or valuable or useful)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wisdom"):
advisability (the quality of being advisable)
reasonableness (goodness of reason and judgment)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight
Synonyms:
sapience; wisdom
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("wisdom" is a kind of...):
know-how (the (technical) knowledge and skill required to do something)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wisdom"):
astuteness; deepness; depth; profoundness; profundity (the intellectual ability to penetrate deeply into ideas)
discernment; judgement; judgment; sagaciousness; sagacity (the mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("wisdom" is a kind of...):
cognitive content; content; mental object (the sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wisdom"):
abstruseness; abstrusity; profoundness; profundity; reconditeness (wisdom that is recondite and abstruse and profound)
Sense 5
Meaning:
An Apocryphal book consisting mainly of a meditation on wisdom; although ascribed to Solomon it was probably written in the first century BC
Synonyms:
Wisdom; Wisdom of Solomon
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Instance hypernyms:
book (a major division of a long written composition)
Holonyms ("Wisdom" is a part of...):
Apocrypha (14 books of the Old Testament included in the Vulgate (except for II Esdras) but omitted in Jewish and Protestant versions of the Bible; eastern Christian churches (except the Coptic Church) accept all these books as canonical; the Russian Orthodox Church accepts these texts as divinely inspired but does not grant them the same status)
sapiential book; wisdom book; wisdom literature (any of the biblical books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus) that are considered to contain wisdom)
Context examples:
She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
HER wisdom too limited the number of their servants to three; two maids and a man, with whom they were speedily provided from amongst those who had formed their establishment at Norland.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Or are these thoughts the vain wisdom which comes after the event?
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Then the rest I leave to your wisdom, Sir William; and if God sends us fortune we shall meet you again in this gorge ere it be dark.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I confess that I have been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than never to learn it at all.”
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
However, this confirmed my first opinion, that a people who could so far civilise brute animals, must needs excel in wisdom all the nations of the world.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
"After all, you have but the wisdom of your temperament, and the wisdom of my temperament is just as unimpeachable as yours."
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
When the trap pulled up on the grass-grown drive in front of the blotched and weather-stained door, I had doubts as to my wisdom in visiting a man whom I knew so slightly.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
To be sure, it was an unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
