Home North American English wildness

Definition of wildness in US English:

wildness

noun

1The character of being uncultivated, undomesticated, or inhospitable.
‘the wildness and beauty of the Scottish hills’
‘conflict between civilization and the wildness of nature’
- ‘The beauty and wildness of the country is mirrored in the beauty and wildness of its people and politics.’
- ‘The rough and unkempt textures of the horses coats attests to their wildness.’
- ‘For him, nothing - neither civilization nor the wildness it seeks to eradicate - ever gets lost.’
- ‘The civility and wildness of the river coexist, much like Huck's personality.’
- ‘Significantly he was also an innovator of the Gothic Novel - a new genre in fantasy that drew on the wildness of the Middle Ages.’
1. 1.1 Strength of emotion.
  ‘the free-spirited wildness of my unrepressed desires’
  ‘The ambiguity inherent in that fantasy of unpinning suggests not only the male desire, but also the very real potential of a female "wildness" that desires release.’
  ‘There was a wildness that permeated her eyes.’
  ‘He arranges a side-by-side comparison of Oedipus' irony and pathos with the wildness of his passion.’
  ‘He is rediscovering the wildness within him that was forgotten.’
  ‘I love improvisation and wildness of feeling and imagination, but it all has to find a container for itself. Otherwise the energy leaks out.’
2Lack of discipline or restraint.
‘why does their mother do nothing to curb their wildness?’
‘the wildness of the nightlife’
- ‘I was interested in him as a character and, at the same time, a little scared of his wildness.’
- ‘She shows few signs of the funky wildness her character is supposed to have.’
- ‘It represents, if you didn't get it by now, the bit of wildness in all of us.’
- ‘He was always clever with mechanical things and I thought he was settled and had got over his wildness.’
- ‘The wildness of Behn's life easily rivals that of any of the characters in her plays.’
3Lack of sound reasoning or probability.
‘the wildness of his ideas’
- ‘He has kept his friends perpetually apologizing for him by the wildness of his errors in dealing with other things of quite as much importance.’
- ‘He manages to bring to the stage the kind of free association and wildness of human thought that is generally the realm of the novelist.’
- ‘There is a wildness of thought which disqualifies the mind for usefulness.’
- ‘He keeps it all in an oddly truthful range, given the wildness of the idea.’