worldly-wiseadj.n.

c1400 (?a1387) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Huntington HM 137) (1873) C. xi. l. 90 Ȝe worldliche wyse, vnwyse þat ȝe suffre, Lene hem and loue hem.

a1450 ( in J. Kail 26 Polit. Poems (1904) 2 Worldly wys is gostly nys.

c1450 ( Crowned King l. 85 in W. W. Skeat Langland's Piers Plowman (1873) 527 Þou most be worldly wys & ware þe be-tymes.

1562 Bp. J. Pilkington Expos. Abdyas Ee ij These Edomites..picked oute..the worldly wisest men, thei coulde finde to be their rulers.

a1569 M. Coverdale Fruitful Lessons (1593) To Rdr. sig. ¶3^v This is peraduenture laughed to scorne of the vnexpert, proud, worldly wise.

1642 D. Rogers Naaman 212 Crangling and worldly wise braines.

1667 J. Milton Paradise Lost xii. 568 By things deemd weak Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise By simply meek. View more context for this quotation

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison II. xiii. 97 It was now, in the worldly-wise way of thinking, become his interest to keep up the distance..between them.

1792 M. Wollstonecraft Vindic. Rights Woman viii. 307 I do not say that a prudent, worldly-wise man..may not sometimes obtain a more smooth reputation than a wiser or a better man.

1851 E. B. Browning Casa Guidi Windows i. xiii. 34 The friars, with worldly-wise Keen, sidelong glances.

1866 C. Kingsley Hereward the Wake I. iv. 148 The lads..imposed on by the cynical and worldly-wise tone which their..uncle had assumed.

1909 H. T. Peck Stud. in Several Literatures ix. 158 Unless you are a Londoner, unless you are worldly-wise, unless you have yourself a touch of cynicism in your nature, you will not greatly care for Thackeray.

1954 J. T. McNeill Hist. & Char. Calvinism ii. xiii. 206 True doctrine is a scandal to the worldly-wise.

2005 T. Aw Harmony Silk Factory iii. 295 ‘Ah bollocks,’ said Brother Rodney, a burly Australian who likes to think of himself as rather more worldly-wise than he is.

1561 J. Gough in Godly Boke Prol. sig. C.ii^v The question whiche might be asked him by some worldlye wiseman, whiche woulde saye. Why Sir what maner of lyfe woulde you haue vs to leade?

a1631 J. Donne Serm. (1957) III. 73 Not onely a worldly wiseman, but a Christian wiseman may reach out both hands, to both kinds of blessings,..spirituall and temporall.

1775 T. Haweis Familiar & Pract. Improvem. Church Catech. iii. 21 A labourer, who has learned to read and write may be as vain of his scholarship among his equals, as the most puffed up worldly wiseman.

1864 W. E. Tayler Ashley Down iv. 53 What a lesson does the conduct of this truly apostolic man offer to those timid ‘worldly wisemen’ of the present day.

1921 P. Gibbs More that must be Told iii. 108 Out of the House of Commons, that assembly of ‘hard-faced men who look as if they had done extremely well out of the war’, out of that House of Worldly Wisemen, came a plea for ‘a spiritual lead’.

1982 Daily Herald (Chicago) 31 Jan. vi. 5 Corde exposes his own innocence against a backdrop of assorted con artists, slick lawyers, Dickensian Scrooges and Bunyanesques Worldly Wisemen.

1681 H. More Plain Expos. Daniel Pref. p. xxx The worldly Wiselings who for coarse carnal ends decry all pretence to the understanding of Prophecies.