The story
- Proto-West Germanic · inherited from[Term?]
- Old English · inherited fromworuldwīs“worldwise, worldly-wise, learned”
- Middle English · inherited fromworldwis
- English todayworldwise
From Middle English worldwis, from Old English woruldwīs (“worldwise, worldly-wise, learned”), from Proto-West Germanic [Term?]; compare Middle Dutch wereltwijs (Dutch wereldwijs), Old High German weraltwīs. By surface analysis, world + wise.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.