wildernesse

wildernesse (plural wildernesses)

1. Obsolete spelling of wilderness.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 2, page 272:

     For ſtill he traueild through wide waſtfull ground, / That nought but deſert wilderneſſe ſhewed all around.

   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

     Tuball. One of them ſhewed me a ring that hee had of your daughter for a Monkey. / Shy[lock]. Out vpon her: thou tortur'ſt me Tuball, it was my Turkies, I had it of Leah when I was a Batchellor: I would not haue giuen it for a wilderneſſe of Monkies.

   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth, […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     O my poore kingdome! ſicke with ciuill blowes: / VVhen that my care could not withhold thy riots, / VVhat wilt thou do when riot is thy care? / O thou wilt be a wilderneſſe againe, / Peopled with woolues, thy old inhabitants.

   • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 71, column 2:

     What ſhould I thinke, / Heauen ſhield my Mother plaid my Father faire: / For ſuch a warped ſlip of wilderneſſe / Nere iſſu'd from his blood.

     What should I think? / Heaven forbid, my mother must have been unfaithful to my father, / For such a warped descendant of wildness / Never issued from his blood.

   • c. 1613 (first performance), John Fletcher, “The Tragedie of Bonduca”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 66, column 2:

     [T]he virgins thou haſt rob'd of all their wiſhes, / blaſted their blowing hopes, turn'd their ſongs, / their mirthful Marriage-ſongs to Funerals, / the Land thou haſt left a wilderneſſe of wretches.

   • 1626, [Samuel] Purchas, “Of the Religious Votaries amongst the Turkes, and of Their Saints, Sects, Miracles, and Hypocriticall Holinesse”, in Purchas His Pilgrimes. […], 5th part, London: […] William Stansby for Henrie Fetherstone, […], →OCLC, [3rd] book, page 315:

     Strange it is, that he reporteth of the miraculous workes of ſome of them, that they may ſeeme (as he ſaith) incarnate Deuils: […] ſome dwell amongſt men, ſome by themſelues apart, and ſome in Wilderneſſe: […]

• wildernes, wildernosse, wildirnes, wildirnesse, wildrenes, wyldernyse, wyldernesse, wyldernyse, wyldrenesse
• wildirenes, wildurnes, wyldernese, wyldurnesse (Late Middle English)
• wyldirnes (Early Scots)

Usually derived from Old English *wildēornes, *wilddēornes, either from wilddēor (“wild animal”) +‎ -nes, thus equivalent to wilde (“wild”) +‎ der (“animal, deer”) +‎ -nesse (“-ness”), or wilddēoren (“savage, wild”) +‎ -nes. Alternatively, from wilderne (“wilderness”) +‎ -nesse.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwildərˌnɛs(ə)/

wildernesse (plural wildernesses)

1. A wilderness; an desolate or unpopulated place:
   1. A ruin; a devastated or depopulated place.
   2. (rare, figurative) Destruction, desolation.
   3. (rare, figurative) The isolation of human existence.

• English: wilderness
• Middle Scots: wildernes
  • Scots: wilderness

• “wī̆ldernes(se, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.