Wilderness is wild untouched land where nobody lives. No roads, no fields, no fences.
Genuine wilderness is rarer than people think, since almost all of Britain has been shaped by farming for millennia, and the wildest-looking moors are the result of grazing. America has legally designated wilderness areas. The figurative sense is about exile, since a politician in the wilderness has been out of office for years, and that phrase comes straight from the biblical years spent in one.
1nounwildernessA large area of wild land untouched by human development.
“They walked for three days without leaving the wilderness.”
2nounperiodA period out of power or public favour.
“He spent a decade in the political wilderness.”
Also accepted in games: the wild
Proto-Indo-European
*wel-
Middle English
wildernes
English, today
wilderness
Built from
From Middle English wildernes, wildernesse (“desolate or uninhabited place, desolation”)wildernese, wildernise, wildernosse, wildirnes, wilirnesse, wildirenes, wildurnes, wildurnesse, wildrenes, wildrenesse, wyldernesse, wyldernys, and then either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Nature & Weather, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 37 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word