wild
adjective · noun · verb · adverb
Simple meaning
Usually, being of the wild type: being of an unbroken ancestral line of undomesticated animals.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wyldIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwaɪld
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
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).
Untamed; not domesticated.
Able to stand in for others, e.g. a card in games, or a text character in computer pattern matching.
Of an audio recording: intended to be synchronized with film or video but recorded separately.
Very inaccurate; far off the mark.
noun
Something that is able to stand in for others, such as a particular playing card in a game.
A forest or wood.
chiefly in the plural
A wilderness.
A wild primitive state untouched by civilization
singularwith "the"
The undomesticated state of a wild animal.
verb
intransitiveslangIn the form wilding or wildin'
To act in a strange or unexpected way.
intransitiveslang
To commit random acts of assault, robbery, and rape in an urban setting, especially as a gang.
adverb
Inaccurately; not on target.
of an audio recording
Intended to be synchronized with film or video but recorded separately.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, wild is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
To an extreme or greatly exaggerated degree.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A widely naturalized Eurasian herb with finely cut foliage and white compound umbels of small white or yellowish flowers and thin yellowish roots.
An unpredictable factor.
Any of various aromatic herbs of the genus Monarda.
Plant of wetlands and bogs of temperate regions having small greenish flowers partly enclosed in a white spathe and red berries.
Wild original of cultivated cabbages.
A North American vine with fragrant blossoms and edible tubers.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Wild or uncultivated flowering plant.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.