Wildernesses

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An expanse of uncultivated land that remains in its natural state, containing diverse ecosystems and wildlife
2. Areas characterized by their lack of human development, often providing habitats for various plant and animal species
3. Regions of nature preserved in their original form, usually remote and untouched by urbanization or agriculture

Etymology: The plural "wildernesses" is simply the ordinary plural of "wilderness," so the story is really the story of the base noun. "Wilderness" began in Old English as "wilddēor," meaning "wild animal," built from "wilde" ("savage, wild") and "dēor" ("beast"). The word that first described a place was really about creatures: a wild-beast land. Over time the "-nes" suffix, which forms abstract nouns of quality or state, was attached, producing forms meaning "wild, desolate, uninhabited place" in Middle English. The word's older sense of desolation carried a darker charge. In the King James Bible, Numbers 14:32–33 says the disobedient Israelites' carcasses "shall fall in this wilderness" and that their children "shall wander in the wilderness forty years," so the word came to mean a situation of disfavour or neglect as well as a physical place. The modern sense of an untouched natural area is a later narrowing of that broad idea of wild, unsettled land.

Synonyms: wilds, backcountry

Antonyms: civilization, urban area