wild
Meanings
- Untamed; not domesticated.
- Especially, being of the wild type: being of an unbroken ancestral line of undomesticated animals, as opposed to being feral, being an undomesticated animal whose ancestors were domesticated.
- Being in the wild, by any pathway (whether by being of the wild type, by being feral since birth, or by being feral after escape from domesticated life).
- From or relating to wild creatures.
- Unrestrained or uninhibited.
- Raucous, unruly, or licentious.
- Of unregulated and varying frequency.
- Visibly and overtly anxious; frantic.
- Furious; very angry.
- Disheveled, tangled, or untidy.
- Enthusiastic.
- Very inaccurate; far off the mark.
- Inaccurately; not on target.
- Intended to be synchronized with film or video but recorded separately.
- The undomesticated state of a wild animal.
- A wilderness.
- Something that is able to stand in for others, such as a particular playing card in a game.
- To commit random acts of assault, robbery, and rape in an urban setting, especially as a gang.
- (In the form wilding or wildin') To act in a strange or unexpected way.
- Alternative form of weald.
- A surname from Middle English originally referring to a wild person, or for someone living in uncultivated land.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English weilde, wield, wielde, wijlde, wild, wilde, wyld, wylde, wyled, wyyld, from Old English wilde, from Proto-West Germanic *wilþī, from Proto-Germanic *wilþijaz (“wild”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂welh₁- (“hair; wool”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian wil (“wild”), Saterland Frisian wíeld, wüüld (“wild”), West Frisian wyld (“wild”), Bavarian wüd (“wild”), Central Franconian weld (“wild”), Cimbrian bill (“crazy, mad; wild; stupid”), Dutch, German, and Low German wild (“wild”), Luxembourgish wëll (“wild; savage”), Vilamovian wyłd (“wild”), Yiddish ווילד (vild, “wild; savage”), Danish vild (“wild”), Faroese villur (“wild”), Icelandic villtur (“wild; lost; barbaric, savage; uncultivated; untamed”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk vill (“wild”), Swedish vild (“wild”), vill (“lost”), Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌻𐌸𐌴𐌹𐍃 (wilþeis, “wild”); also Cornish gwlan (“wool”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic olann (“wool”), Manx ollan (“wool”), Welsh gwlân (“wool”), Latin vellus (“fleece, wool”), villus (“hair, shaggy hair”), Ancient Greek λάχνη (lákhnē, “woolly hair; thin hair; soft nap or pile on cloth; quills hedgehog; leafage”), Lithuanian valai (“hair of the horse tail”), Belarusian во́лас (vólas, “single hair”), Czech and Slovak vlas (“single hair”), Macedonian влас (vlas, “fluff; thread (of hair)”), Polish włos (“single hair”), Russian and Ukrainian во́лос (vólos, “single hair”), Serbo-Croatian вла̑с, vlȃs (“single hair”), Slovene las (“hair on top of head; nap, pile”), Armenian գեղմ (geġm, “fleece, wool”), Central Kurdish پرچ (pirç, “fax, headhair”), Northern Kurdish hirî (“wool”), Persian گرس (gors, “curl, ringlet; braid”), Hittite 𒋠𒀸 (SÍG-aš, “wool”), Tocharian A urṇ (“the circles of white hair between the brows of the Buddha or other deity”), Tocharian B *ūrṇ (“the circles of white hair between the brows of the Buddha or other deity”), Sanskrit वल्श (valśa, “branch, shoot, twig”).