Wilderness

Forms: 3–6 wyldernesse, 3–7 wildernesse, 4–6 wil-, wyl-, -der-, -dir-, -dre-, (-dur-), -dyr-, -nes, -ness(e, (-nys), (4 Sc. vildirnes, 5 wyyldernesse), 4– wilderness. [OE. *wild(d)éornes (Sweet’s A.-S. Dict.) = MLG., MDu. wildernisse (Du. wildernis, G. wildernis); f. wilder, wil(d)déor (see WILD a., WILD DEER) or, perh. more probably, wilddéoren WILDERN a. + -nes -NESS (for the concrete sense cf. héahnes summit, sméþres ‘planities’).

  The other types of derivatives of wild meaning ‘wilderness’ in the Teutonic languages are represented by (1) MHG., G. wilde fem. (cf. WILD sb.), (2) MLG., MHG. wilt(e)nisse, G. wildnis (cf. WILDNESS 2), (3) G. (now dial.) wilden(e, wildin, (4) ME. WILDERN.]

  1.  a. (without article) Wild or uncultivated land.

  Distinguished from desert, in that the latter denotes an uninhabitable and uncultivable region, ard implies entire lack of vegetation.

c. 1200.  Trin. Coll. Hom., 161. Weste is cleped þat londe, þat is longe tilðe atleien, and wildernesse, ȝef þare manie rotes onne wacseð.

c. 1205.  Lay., 30335. He scal habben paþes weste and wildernesse inoȝe.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 2617. In wildernes al bi a well.

13[?].  Sir Beues (A.), 3867. Þe geaunt … In a castel hire hadde to ward, In wildernesse al be selue.

c. 1375.  Sc. Leg. Saints, xviii. 52. Als he trewyt na man was In abay, na in vildirnes, Þat mocht do mare þane he had done.

c. 1400.  Maundev. (Roxb.), xxi. 58. A grete party of þis cuntree es waste and wilderness and noȝt inhabitid.

c. 1450.  Capgrave, Life St. Aug., xiv. 20. Holy heremites whech dwelled in wildyrnesse.

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., II. vii. 2. He traueild through wide wastfull ground, That nought but desert wildernesse shew’d all around.

1596.  Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., II. (S.T.S.), I. 164. Twyse he compelled him to take his refuge in wod and wildirnes.

1613.  Purchas, Pilgrimage, V. v. 404. The Countrey of Gouren, where we found but few villages, and almost all wildernesse.

1835.  W. Irving, Tour Prairies, 143. Passing through tracts of wilderness which they have never before traversed.

1847.  Tennyson, Princess, I. 110. By tilth and grange,… and blowing bosks of wilderness.

  b.  (with article or other definirg word) A wild or uncultivated region or tract of land, uninhabited, or inhabited only by wild animals; ‘a tract of solitude and savageness’ (J.).

a. 1225.  Ancr. R., 160. He … feste þer as he was one iðe wildernesse [v.r. wilderne]. Ibid., 196. Iðe wildernesse [v.r. wildene] heo aspieden us to slean.

a. 1300.  Cursor M., 11110 (Cott.). He … liued wit rotes and wit gress, Wit honi o þe wildernes.

1303.  R. Brunne, Handl. Synne, 172. Hyt was onys a munke, and had a celle In a wyldernes for to dwelle.

13[?].  Gaw. & Gr. Knt., 701. In þe wyldrenesse of Wyrale.

c. 1475.  Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 798/7. Hec solitudo, a wyldernys.

1535.  Coverdale, Job xxxix. 6. Vnto whom I haue geuen the wyldernes to be their house, & the vntilled londe to be their dwellinge place.

1597.  Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., IV. v. 137. O my poore Kingdome … thou wilt be a Wildernesse againe, Peopled with Wolues (thy old Inhabitants).

1645.  Milton, Tetrach., 10. By forcing that upon us as the remedy of solitude, which wraps us in a misery worse then any wildernes.

1784.  Cowper, Task, II. 1. Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness.

1831.  Scott, Cast. Dang., xv. Finding only boundless wildernesses, and varied combinations of tangled woodland scenery.

1855.  Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xix. IV. 368. Temple had made a retreat for himself at a place called Moor Park…. The country round his dwelling was almost a wilderness.

  c.  A piece of ground in a large garden or park, planted with trees, and laid out in an ornamental or fantastic style, often in the form of a maze or labyrinth.

a. 1644.  Quarles, Sol. Recant., ch. ii. 6. I cut me Aquiducts, whose current flees And waters all my wildernesse of trees.

1668.  Dryden, Even. Love, V. Disperse your selves, some into the Wilderness, some into the Allies, and some into the Parterre.

1770.  H. Chamberlain, Hist. & Surv. London, 641/2. In one part of it [sc. the park] is a pretty wilderness laid out in walks, and planted with a variety of ever-green trees.

1784.  Cowper, Task, I. 351.

1839.  E. Jesse, Summer’s Day Hampton Crt., 77. On the opposite side of the palace there is a large space of ground called the Wilderness, planted and laid out by William III.

1885.  Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, I. i. 33. Manifold as were the cares of the hothouses and ferneries and wildernesses.

  2.  transf. or gen. A waste or desolate region of any kind, e.g., of open sea, of air.

1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 94. I stand as one vpon a Rocke, Inuiron’d with a wildernesse of Sea.

1629.  Drayner Confirmed (1647), B 2. The difference between a Wildernesse of water & a goodly green Meadow.

1665.  Waller, Instr. Painter, 78. But who can always on the Billows ly? The watry Wilderness yields no supply.

1821.  Byron, Cain, II. i. This blue wilderness of interminable Air.

1865.  Parkman, Huguenots, iii. (1875), 30. They … saw the long, low line where The wilderness of waves met the wilderness of woods.

  3.  fig. Something figured as a region of a wild or desolate character, or in which one wanders or loses one’s way; in religious use applied to the present world or life as contrasted with heaven or the future life (cf. 6 b).

a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter, cxlvii. 4. He forsakis vs noght in þis wildirenes.

c. 1390.  Chaucer, Truth, 17. Here is non home, here nys but wyldernesse.

c. 1480.  Henryson, Trial of Fox, 317. The Meir is Men of gude conditioun, As Pilgrymes walkand in this wildernes.

1640.  Brome, Antipodes, I. iii. But sure his mind Is in a wildernesse: For there he sayes Are Geese that have two heads a peece.

1664.  Power, Exp. Philos., I. 52. Thus discursive Argumentation and Rational probabilities mislead men in the Wilderness of Enquiry.

1678.  Bunyan, Pilgr., I. 1. As I walk’d through the wilderness of this world.

a. 1708.  T. Ward, Eng. Ref., II. (1710), 46. All they can do’s to bid you pore On Bibles till your Eyes are sore, And in that Wilderness of Letter Hunt for your Faiths.

1813.  Byron, Giaour, 939. The vacant bosom’s wilderness.

1868.  Louisa M. Alcott, Little Women, iv. The cosy chairs, the globes, and best of all, the wilderness of books, in which she could wander where she liked.

  b.  Rhetorically applied to a place (e.g., a building or town) which one finds ‘desolate,’ or in which one is lonely or ‘lost.’

1842.  Dickens, Amer. Notes, vi. Passing this wilderness of an hotel with stores about its base. Ibid. (1848), Dombey, xxiii. So Florence lived in her wilderness of a home.

1891.  Kipling, Light that Failed, 118. Meantime Maisie was alone in London…. And the packed wilderness was very full of danger.

  4.  A mingled, confused, or vast assemblage or collection of persons or things. (Usually colored by other senses; in reference to a growth of plants, nearly coinciding with 1 b; in reference to buildings, etc., often approaching 3 b.)

1588.  Shaks., Tit. A., III. i. 54. Dost thou not perceiue That Rome is but a wildernes of Tigers? Ibid. (1596), Merch. V., III. i. 128. I would not haue giuen it for a wildernesse of Monkies.

1613.  Purchas, Pilgrimage, VII. xii. 598. It was called Madera, of the wildernesses of Trees there growing.

a. 1616.  Beaum. & Fl., Bonduca, V. i. The Land thou hast left a wilderness of wretches.

1667.  Milton, P. L., V. 294. Through Groves of Myrrhe, And flouring Odours, Cassia, Nard and Balme; A Wilderness of sweets.

1678.  E. Howard, Man of Newmarket, I. i. 1. This Metropolitan Wilderness of Houses, call’d London.

1775.  Sheridan, Duenna, I. ii. A wilderness of faults and follies.

1824.  Byron, Juan, XVI. iii. This epic will contain A wilderness of the most rare conceits.

1857.  Dickens, Dorrit, I. ix. The wilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on the shore.

  15.  Wildness, uncultivated condition. Obs.

c. 1449.  Pecock, Repr., III. xiv. 370. The tenementis … which the clergie … holden … is better … kept fro falling into nouȝt and into wildirnes, than if tho same tenementis … weren in the hondis of grete lordis.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 245. These paths and Bowers doubt not but our joynt hands Will keep from Wilderness with ease.

  † b.  fig. Wildness of character, licentiousness. Obs. nonce-use.

1603.  Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 142. For such a warped slip of wildernesse Nere issu’d from his blood.

  6.  attrib. a. lit. (in quot. 1670 in sense 1 c).

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, I. xvii. (1912), 112. Being one of that little wildernesse-company.

1670.  Meager, English Gardener, Title-p., The ordering of the Garden of Pleasure, with variety of Knots, and Wilderness-work.

1801.  Farmer’s Mag., Aug., 297. 14 acres of wilderness land converted into grass.

1875.  E. Thring, in Skrine, Mem. (1889), 218. The poor beggars had tightish work, you know, with all that wilderness life before them.

  b.  fig.; esp. in former religious use, Belonging to the present world or life (cf. 3).

1651.  Baxter, Saints’ Rest, II. ix. § 1 (ed. 2), 290. If they had not felt their Wildernes-necessities, God should not have exercised his Wildernes-providences and mercies.

1675.  T. Brooks, Gold. Key, Wks. 1867, V. 473. A wilderness-condition is … a condition of straits, wants, deep distresses, and most deadly dangers.

1679.  C. Nesse, Antichrist, 208. Tainted both with Egypts idolatry, and wilderness-sins.

1719.  J. T. Philipps, trans. Thirty-four Confer., 79. The Progress thro this Wilderness-World, towards a better … Life.

1898.  Meredith, Odes Fr. Hist., 16. Her soul On eddies of wild water cast, In wilderness division.