Dictionary

worldliness en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From Middle English worldlynesse, equivalent to worldly + -ness. Compare West Frisian wrâldlikens (“worldliness”), German Weltlichkeit (“worldliness”), Swedish världslighet (“worldliness”).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The quality of being worldly; familiarity with the ways of the world.
   • There was a coarseness in the one which revolted the almost fastidious delicacy of the other; and Lady Marchmont, full of poetry, touched with romance and sentiment, had nothing in common with the harsh and hard worldliness of Lady Mary; […] 1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “An Act of Parliament”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 186:
   • Another thing, which is leaving the divine things with their divinity, the worldly things with their worldliness and the subhuman things with their demoniacality, is, that before a person attains their own redemption and a development of the state about which we were talking with S. Kulovaný, they have to be educated not to themselves destroy the state, attained by a successful initiation, by their worldliness which is rooted in their mind. 2010, Květoslav Minařík, translated by Danica Klempová, “Initiation and self-initiation”, in Yoga and Buddhism in the Life of a Contemporary Person: Collection of Short Texts (The Direct Path; 1), Prague: Canopus, →ISBN, pages 239–240:

Forms

Relateds

this-worldliness

Translations (7)

pdt Weltlichkjeit (the quality of being worldly) · hi लौकिकता (the quality of being worldly) · es mundología (the quality of being worldly) · ms keduniaan (the quality of being worldly) · id keduniawian (the quality of being worldly) · hi सांसारिकता (the quality of being worldly) · es mundo (the quality of being worldly)