See also: wiseman

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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wise + man

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈwʌɪzman/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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wise man (plural wise men)

  1. A man who is wise.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 3, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes [], book II, London: [] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount [], →OCLC:
      That is the reason, why some say, that the wiseman liveth as long as he ought, and not so long as he can.
    • 1635, John Donne, The Triple Foole:
      But where's that wiseman, that would not be I, / If she would not deny?
    • 2005 December 14, “A wise man in Washington”, in The Economist:
      Mr Lieberman is arguably the last surviving example of a peculiar Washington species: the Wise Man who is willing to put party allegiance aside when it comes to big issues such as foreign policy.
  2. A man who is a sage or seer.
    • 1989, Elias Lönnrot, translated by Keith Bosley, The Kalevala, section III:
      Steady old Väinämöinen / the everlasting wise man [translating tietäjä] / was driving along his roads / pacing out his ways / in those glades of Väinö-land / on the Kalevala heaths.
  3. A magus or wizard, now especially one of the three biblical magi.
    • 1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, Folio Society, published 2012, page 174:
      Some of the other charms employed by the wise men had a more tangled pedigree.

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