Wildeornes

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An Old English noun for a wild, uninhabited tract of land, such as a desert or untamed wilderness
2. A word from Old English meaning a remote, untamed region where people do not settle and nature is unmanaged
3. Old English term for a barren, wild expanse of country left in its natural state, far from human habitation

Etymology: Before it named empty, untamed country, "wilderness" was the Old English "wildeornes," built from "wild" and "deor." In Old English, "deor" meant any animal, not specifically a deer. The word's first sense was therefore something like "the state of being a place of wild animals," and the land it named was defined by what lived there rather than by how it looked. Over the centuries "deor" narrowed to "deer," and the compound's sense shifted from the animals to the empty land they roamed. Middle English spellings such as "wildernesse" show the ending being reshaped to match the common English suffix "-ness," which is why the modern word looks like "wild" plus "-ness" even though its middle part once meant "animal."