WISDOM

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Wisdom mean? 

• WISDOM (noun)
  The noun WISDOM has 5 senses:

1. accumulated knowledge or erudition or enlightenment

2. the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight

3. ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight

4. the quality of being prudent and sensible

5. an Apocryphal book consisting mainly of a meditation on wisdom; although ascribed to Solomon it was probably written in the first century BC

  Familiarity information: WISDOM used as a noun is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WISDOM (noun)

Sense 1

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 2

Meaning:

The trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

wisdom; wiseness

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 3

Meaning:

Ability to apply knowledge or experience or understanding or common sense and insight

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

sapience; wisdom

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:

The quality of being prudent and sensible

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

soundness; wisdom; wiseness

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 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

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

Wisdom; Wisdom of Solomon

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 

You will carry the wisdom that Saturn has taught you during the coming nearly three decades.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Now all is over: you have learnt wisdom, and it is time to hold our marriage feast.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

“Man,” I cried, “how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; you know not what it is you say.”

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Your parents, my dear, have no more worldly wisdom than a pair of babies.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

We held a council round our dismal breakfast-table, to which Mr. Berkeley Craven was invited as a man of sound wisdom and large experience in matters of sport.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Mit-sah resembled his father, much of whose grey wisdom he possessed.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Maud insisted on relieving me, but proved that she had not the strength to steer in a heavy sea, even if she could have gained the wisdom on such short notice.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

I used to fear that I was so unsuited to your learning and wisdom.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Then let old Ebbits teach the white man wisdom," I said softly.

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