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WILDERNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A bewildering profusion
Example:
a wilderness of masts in the harbor
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):
cornucopia; profuseness; profusion; richness (the property of being extremely abundant)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition
Example:
it was a wilderness preserved for the hawks and mountaineers
Synonyms:
wild; wilderness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):
geographic area; geographic region; geographical area; geographical region (a demarcated area of the Earth)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wilderness"):
barren; waste; wasteland (an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation)
bush (a large wilderness area)
frontier (a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country)
Derivation:
wild (located in a dismal or remote area; desolate)
wild (in a natural state; not tamed or domesticated or cultivated)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Instance hypernyms:
forest; timber; timberland; woodland (land that is covered with trees and shrubs)
Domain region:
Old Dominion; Old Dominion State; VA; Va.; Virginia (a state in the eastern United States; one of the original 13 colonies; one of the Confederate States in the American Civil War)
Sense 4
Meaning:
(politics) a state of disfavor
Example:
he led the Democratic party back from the wilderness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("wilderness" is a kind of...):
disfavor; disfavour (the state of being out of favor)
Domain category:
political relation; politics (social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power)
Context examples:
The study shows an average subordinate spends more than six days each year in the wilderness, with this figure rising year-on-year.
(Breeder meerkats age faster, but their subordinates still die younger, University of Cambridge)
In every other direction the moor is a complete wilderness, inhabited only by a few roaming gypsies.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The jungle and the wilderness lurked in the uplift and downput of his feet.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of revellers.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth, Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
From where they now stood they could look forward down a long vista of beech woods and jagged rock-strewn wilderness, all white with snow, to where the pass opened out upon the uplands beyond.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had the idea, which a country-bred lad brings up with him, that London was merely a wilderness of houses, but I was astonished now to see the green slopes and the lovely spring trees showing between.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“James,” said Mrs. Rushworth to her son, “I believe the wilderness will be new to all the party. The Miss Bertrams have never seen the wilderness yet.”
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
One might have supposed him a child of the wilderness, long accustomed to live out of the confines of civilization, and about to return to his native wilds.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Their place was taken by an immense wilderness of bamboo, which grew so thickly that we could only penetrate it by cutting a pathway with the machetes and billhooks of the Indians.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
