worldly

/ˈwʌrldli/

/ˈwʌldli/

Other forms: worldlier; worldliest

You can use the adjective worldly to describe people who have knowledge of many topics or experience in many areas. You don't have to travel the globe to be worldly; reading and talking about many things with knowledge and enthusiasm is worldly too.

While worldly often describes individuals who are sophisticated and well-rounded in education, travel, and experiences, it's also used for people who are rooted in the world or focused on physical and material things around them, rather than on spiritual matters. An old expression in religion is "She was too heavenly minded for worldly good," and it describes those who think about the spiritual or supernatural so much that they aren't worldly enough to get anything done.

Definitions of worldly

1. adjective

   characteristic of or devoted to the temporal world as opposed to the spiritual world
   “worldly goods and advancement”

   synonyms: secular, temporal

   earthly

   of or belonging to or characteristic of this earth as distinguished from heaven

   profane, secular

   not concerned with or devoted to religion

   sophisticated

   having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir-faire

   economic

   concerned with worldly necessities of life (especially money)

   material

   concerned with worldly rather than spiritual interests

   materialistic, mercenary, worldly-minded

   marked by materialism

   mundane, terrestrial

   concerned with the world or worldly matters

   antonyms:

   unworldly

   not concerned with the temporal world or swayed by mundane considerations

   pious

   having or showing or expressing reverence for a deity

   naif, naive

   marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile or worldly experience

   anchoritic, eremitic, eremitical, hermitic, hermitical

   characterized by ascetic solitude

   cloistered, cloistral, conventual, monastic, monastical

   of communal life sequestered from the world under religious vows

   spiritual, unearthly

   concerned with or affecting the spirit or soul

   unmercenary

   not mercenary; not influenced by financial gains
2. adjective

   very sophisticated especially because of surfeit; versed in the ways of the world
   “the benefits of his worldly wisdom”

   synonyms: blase

   sophisticated

   having or appealing to those having worldly knowledge and refinement and savoir-faire