Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Wisdom.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Wisdom.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state, quality, or measure of being wise; wisdom.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the quality of being prudent and sensible
  • noun the trait of utilizing knowledge and experience with common sense and insight

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English wisnesse, from Old English wīsnes ("teaching, wisdom"), equivalent to wise +‎ -ness.

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Examples

  • And yet, although racial vulnerability at school may undermine black achievement, so many other factors seem to contribute — from the debilitations of poverty to the alleged dysfunctions of black American culture — that one might expect "wiseness" in the classroom to be of little help.

    Race and the Schooling of Black Americans 1992

  • And yet, although racial vulnerability at school may undermine black achievement, so many other factors seem to contribute — from the debilitations of poverty to the alleged dysfunctions of black American culture — that one might expect "wiseness" in the classroom to be of little help.

    Race and the Schooling of Black Americans 1992

  • There was nobody evaluating the wiseness of the decisions my family and I made, and no one making sure I actually understood the borrowing process.

    Mike Vattuone: College's Catch-22 Mike Vattuone 2011

  • With all this exponential growth, a fraction of which is even an increased quantity of intelligence, in how much of it is there any growth of wisdom, wiseness, useful insight about not just the future of humanity, nor what is needed to save us, but the really important question of what is needed to organize the mass of humanity toward saving itself against built-in selfish trends?

    What Don't You Understand About EXPONENTIAL? 2010

  • Second, issues surrounding ‘test-wiseness’ should be evident across all constructions; yet the LAA group performed at ceiling on the control condition i.e., the actives.

    1/3 of Americans can't speak? GamesWithWords 2010

  • Something that might have allowed us to rise above China and India, close on our heels, and show them that American right-wiseness wins out over the exploitation of a country's most vital national resource: people.

    Pass Along this Open Letter to the Republican Party 2009

  • The recent foiling of a terrorist plot to attack a New York City synagogue has caused some to question the wiseness of Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo prisons and bring its detainees to the United States.

    Allison Kilkenny: Missing Weapons: The Nation's Great Threat 2009

  • 'Here's a noble girl for you!' cried Sir Hugh, opening the door with a flourish; 'for all she's got so many best things, she's come down in her worst, for the sake of looking ill at the beginning, to the end that there may be no fault to be found afterwards; which is the wiseness that does honour to her education.'

    Camilla 2008

  • You love of the Tastykake verifies your wiseness in my book.

    Stress relief Professor in Training 2008

  • Hz yu enny advises or commints frum yr stores ov wiseness?

    o.m.g. Fluffy wuzn’t lyin. - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? 2008

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