(Also formerly with hyphen, or as one word.) (Cf. Du. wilde mann cannibal, G. wildemann, wildmann, wilder mann, ON. villumaðr.]
1. A man who is wild, in various senses of the adj. a. A man of savage, fierce, uncultured, or unruly nature or character (cf. WILD a. 6, 7).
c. 1290. S. Eng. Leg., 47/17. Wylde Men ne louede he nouȝt, þat rechelese weren of þouȝte.
13[?]. R. Glouc. Chron. (Rolls), App. H. 136. A wuilde men [read man] fol bolde Þe king sende in to þe court to þe heiȝe men of þe londe.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, x. (Mathou), 402. Þare-for be ȝe of stedfast wil, Þocht wyld men wil ȝov do Il.
1513. St. Papers Hen. VIII., No. 4101. lf. 5 (P.R.O.). A Seler and a tester of Redsay and therein a wilde man Ryding on a horse.
1630. [see WILD a. 12].
a. 1639. Whateley, Prototypes, I. xvi. (1640), 161. A wild man lives as he lists himselfe.
b. (WILD a. 5.) A man of an uncivilized race or tribe; a savage, or one reverted to a savage state.
13[?]. Cursor M., 3081 (Gött.). [Ishmael] wonid þar as a wild man, In þat desert þat hight pharan.
1530. in Ancestor (1904), Oct., 181. Wolton beryth to his crest a wood wous a wylld man in his kynde vert.
1568. Hacket, trans. Thevet’s New found World, xxiv. 31 b. We were well received of the Indians or wilde men of the Countrey.
1575. in Brydges, Brit. Bibliogr. (1810), I. 541. To make waye in the streetes, there are certayne men apparelled lyke devells, and wylde men, with skybbs and certayne beadells.
1611. W. Adams, Lett., in Rundall, Mem. Japon (Hakl. Soc.), 37. Eight of our men … ranne from vs with the pinnesse, and (as we suppose) were eaten of the wild men.
1767. Ann. Reg., Chron., 47/1. Peter the wild man, who was taken in the Hartz Forest in Hanover.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 2. The wild man of North America is exceedingly unlike the wild man of every other country.
c. pl. The extremists of a political party, a profession, etc.
1923. Weekly Dispatch, 13 May, 2. The wild men pin their faith to the Capital Levy as a vote-catcher.
1923. Daily Mail, 23 July, 14. All the ‘wild men’ of European music, such as Schönberg, Bartok, Prokoviev, Stravinsky, Alois Haba…, Milhaud, and Poulenc.
[1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 131. These animals [sc. Orang-Outang], in all the different languages of the natives, are called by names signifying a Wild Man.]
1791. Smellie, trans. Buffon’s Nat. Hist., VIII. 97. As there is a greater similarity between this animal and man than between those creatures which resemble him most, as the Barbary ape [etc.], the Indians are to be excused for associating him with the human species, under the denomination of orang-outang, or wild man.
1881. J. Hatton, New Ceylon, iii. 72. The Bornean ‘wild man’ is quite harmless.
