WILDERNESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Wilderness mean? 

• WILDERNESS (noun)
  The noun WILDERNESS has 4 senses:

1. (politics) a state of disfavor

2. a wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War

3. a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition

4. a bewildering profusion

  Familiarity information: WILDERNESS used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WILDERNESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(politics) a state of disfavor

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Context example:

he led the Democratic party back from the wilderness

Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):

disfavor; disfavour (the state of being out of favor)

Domain category:

political relation; politics (social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

forest; timber; timberland; woodland (land that is covered with trees and shrubs)

Domain region:

Old Dominion; Old Dominion State; VA; Va.; Virginia (a state in the eastern United States; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

wild; wilderness

Context example:

it was a wilderness preserved for the hawks and mountaineers

Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):

geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wilderness"):

barren; waste; wasteland (an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation)

bush (a large wilderness area)

frontier (a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country)

Derivation:

wild (located in a dismal or remote area; desolate)

wild (in a natural state; not tamed or domesticated or cultivated)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A bewildering profusion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Context example:

a wilderness of masts in the harbor

Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):

cornucopia; profuseness; profusion; richness (the property of being extremely abundant)

 Context examples 

I looked in all directions, as far as I could stare over the wilderness, and away at the sea, and away at the river, but no house could I make out.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

With as much ease as I was told to go into this wilderness.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Here, at one side of this wilderness, is Holdernesse Hall, ten miles by road, but only six across the moor.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

With a handful of salt and a rifle he could plunge into the wilderness and fare wherever he pleased and as long as he pleased.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

A wilderness of swampy forest, where no white man has ever been.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That means almost no forests can really be considered wilderness.

(Shrinking habitats have adverse effects on world ecosystems, NSF)

Think what luxury— Plumfield my own, and a wilderness of boys to enjoy it with me.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

He would go away into the heart of the wilderness, and never again appear in civilization.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)