world

pronunciation

How to pronounce world in British English: UK [wɜːld]word uk audio image

How to pronounce world in American English: US [wɜːrld] word us audio image

  • Noun:
    all of the inhabitants of the earth
    everything that exists anywhere
    all of your experiences that determine how things appear to you
    people in general; especially a distinctive group of people with some shared interest
    the 3rd planet from the sun; the planet on which we live
    the concerns of the world as distinguished from heaven and the afterlife
    a part of the earth that can be considered separately
    people in general considered as a whole
  • Adjective:
    involving the entire earth; not limited or provincial in scope

Word Origin

world
world: [OE] Etymologically, world means ‘age of man’. That is the basis of its earliest recorded sense, ‘earthly existence, human life’. But already by the 9th century it was being used for the ‘earth’ itself. It is a compound noun formed in the prehistoric Germanic period from *weraz ‘man’ (probable source of the were- of English werewolf and related to virile) and *ald- ‘age’ (ancestor of English old), and its relatives include German welt, Dutch wereld, Swedish verld, and Danish verden.=> old, virile, werewolf
world (n.)
Old English woruld, worold "human existence, the affairs of life," also "a long period of time," also "the human race, mankind, humanity," a word peculiar to Germanic languages (cognates: Old Saxon werold, Old Frisian warld, Dutch wereld, Old Norse verold, Old High German weralt, German Welt), with a literal sense of "age of man," from Proto-Germanic *wer "man" (Old English wer, still in werewolf; see virile) + *ald "age" (see old). Originally "life on earth, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," sense extended to "the known world," then to "the physical world in the broadest sense, the universe" (c. 1200). In Old English gospels, the commonest word for "the physical world," was Middangeard (Old Norse Midgard), literally "the middle enclosure" (see yard (n.1)), which is rooted in Germanic cosmology. Greek kosmos in its ecclesiastical sense of "world of people" sometimes was rendered in Gothic as manaseþs, literally "seed of man." The usual Old Norse word was heimr, literally "abode" (see home). Words for "world" in some other Indo-European languages derive from the root for "bottom, foundation" (such as Irish domun, Old Church Slavonic duno, related to English deep); the Lithuanian word is pasaulis, from pa- "under" + saule "sun." Original sense in world without end, translating Latin saecula saeculorum, and in worldly. Latin saeculum can mean both "age" and "world," as can Greek aion. Meaning "a great quantity or number" is from 1580s. Out of this world "surpassing, marvelous" is from 1928; earlier it meant "dead." World Cup is by 1951; U.S. baseball World Series is by 1893 (originally often World's Series). World power in the geopolitical sense first recorded 1900. World-class is attested from 1950, originally of Olympic athletes.

Synonym

Example

1. Is world cup soccer socialist ?
2. The world keeps watching shanghai .
3. Because the world needs changing .
4. The whole world is watching .
5. This is life in the corporate world .

more: >How to Use "world" with Example Sentences