The world, taken from Apollo 17, 1972
15 August 2025
The word world has a very straightforward etymology. It comes from the Old English woruld, and its basic meanings haven’t changed for over a thousand years.
World can refer to the realm of human existence or to various subdivisions of it, such as the world of sports or the world of model railroading. We can see this sense in the Old English translation of Pope Gregory the Great’s Cura pastoralis (Pastoral Care). It was translated in the late ninth century C.E. and is often attributed to King Alfred, although it is more likely that the book was translated at his request than actually by him:
Ond suaðeah monige underfoð heorde, ond ðeah wilniað ðæt hie beon freo ond æmtige synderlice him selfum to gæstlicum weorcum, ond noldon beon abisgode nane wuht on eorðlicum ðingum. Ða, ðonne hie eallinga agiemeleasiað ðone ymbhogan woruldcundra ðinga, ðonne ne gefultumað he nawuht to his hieremonna niedðearfe. Forðæm wyrð oft forsewen ðara monna lar, ðonne hie tælað ond hatigað hiera hieramonna unðeawas, ond ne dooð him nan oðer god ðisse weorolde.
(And neverthelsss many undertake pastoral office, and yet desire that they be free and particularly devote themselves to spiritual works, and would not occupy themselves at all in earthly things. Then, when they entirely neglect the cares of worldly things, then they do not at all fulfill the needs of their followers. Therefore, it often happens the instruction of these people is scorned, when they scold and disdain the faults of their followers, and do them no good in this world.)
And we can see the word’s use to mean the globe or planet in the poem by Cynewulf that is given the modern title of Christ II. This passage is about Christ’s ascension into heaven:
Ne meahtan þa þæs fugles flyht gecnawan
þe þæs up-stiges ondsæc fremedon,
ond þæt ne gelyfdon, þætte lif-fruma
in monnes hiw ofer mægna þrym,
halig from hrusan, ahafen wurde.
Ða us geweorðaðe se þas world gescop,
Godes gæst-sunu, ond us giefe sealde.
(They could not know the flight of the bird, those who did deny the ascension, and did not believe that the creator of life became raised in the form of a man above the glory of the hosts, holy from the ground. Then he honored us, he who created the world, God’s spiritual son, and gave us gifts.)
Sources:
Cynewulf. The Old English Poems of Cynewulf. Robert E. Bjork, ed. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 23. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2013, 16, lines 654–60.
Gregory the Great. The Old English Pastoral Care. R. D. Fulk, ed. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 72. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2021, 2.18, 145.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, November 2010, s.v. world, n.
Photo credit: NASA, 1972. Wikimedia Commons. Public domain image.