world-weary

comparative world-wearier · superlative world-weariest · alternative world weary · alternative worldweary

1. Tired of the ways of the world; feeling apathetic or cynical due to one's life experiences.

   Till you ſhall bid this ſad, world weary ſpirit, / To peaceful regions wing her weary flight.

   1770, [Francis Gentleman], “Zenobia. A Tragedy. Anonymous.”, in The Dramatic Censor; or, Critical Companion, volume I, London: J[ohn] Bell, […]; York, Yorkshire: C. Etherington, […], →OCLC, page 401

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   O here Will I ſet vp my euerlaſting reſt: And ſhake the yoke of inauſpicious ſtarres From this world-wearied fleſh: […]

   [c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], page 75, column 2

   Yes! they are such spots as thousands are longing for; as the day-dreaming young, and the world-weary old, are yearning after, and painting to their mind's eye, daily in great cities; [...]

   1838, William Howitt, “Nooks of the World; Or, A Peep into the Back Settlements of England”, in The Rural Life of England: … In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, →OCLC, part III, page 252

   Those who smiled upon my childhood / Oft round my chair I see, / Who, though grey-haired and world-weary, / Yet grew young again with me!

   1850 October, “The Aged Lady”, in Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine and Gazette […], volume XXIX (New Series), number CLXXIII, London: A. H. Blackwood, Simpkin & Page, […]; Dublin: Bolton and Grant; Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, →OCLC, page 131

   "The doctrine of eternal recurrence as a hammer in the hand of the most powerful …" poses the question: "Do you want this once more and innumerable times more …" as "a doctrine strong enough to have the effect of breeding: strengthening the strong, paralyzing and breaking the worldweary."

   1970, Bernd Magnus, “Heidegger’s Nietzsche in Critical Perspective”, in Heidegger’s Metahistory of Philosophy: Amor Fati, Being and Truth, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, →OCLC, pages 139–140; softcover edition, Dordrecht: Springer Science+Business Media, 2012, →DOI, →ISBN, part II (Heidegger’s Metahistory of Philosophy), pages 139–140

   [Holocaust memorials and museums] form a specific genre of architecture [...] indeed there may even be a certain world-weary resistance to their proliferation [...].

   1995, Adrian Dannatt, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: James Ingo Freed (Architecture in Detail), London: Phaidon Press, →ISBN, page 5; quoted in Elizabeth Ellsworth, “The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum as a Scene of Pedagogical Address”, in Places of Learning: Media, Architecture, Pedagogy, New York, N.Y.; Abingdon, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2005, →ISBN, page 101

   Synonyms: jaded, world-wearied

2. Bored with life.

   The drill sergeants are the world weariest of soldiers; and now, goddamit, they have to teach 'girls', no bigger than their kid sisters.

   1988, The Geographical Magazine, volume 60, London: Geographical Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 72

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   In the cafés of the Boule Miche, where the decadent movements are hatched and the fledgling Verlaines come to drown their sorrows in vermouth, you may see the lacklustre visages and tumbled hair of "diabolical" poets and the world-weary figures of end-of-the-century youngsters pledging their mistresses in American grog.

   1894, I[srael] Zangwill, “Paris”, in Without Prejudice, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1896, →OCLC, part II (Here, There, and Somewhere Else: Philosophic Excursions), pages 309–310

   With a low budget and limited resources, he's able to expertly mimic the styles of bigger productions, as in a cafeteria number featuring students dancing and stomping on the tables with tricky Broadway-friendly choreography provided by Sarah Swire, who also plays Steph, a wise-cracking, world-weary American kid abandoned by her wealthy parents.

   2018 November 27, April Wolfe, “Anna And The Apocalypse is a Holiday-horror Cocktail of Singing, Maiming, and Clichés”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2019

   Synonyms: apathetic, blasé, jaded, world-wearied, adiaphroistic, apathetic, apathistical, blasé