About 18 months ago I spoke with a man in a business situation about practical wisdom growing out of consciously structured practical skill development, in the course of a getting to know you conversation. He mentioned to me that I had a “wizened air” trying to refer to this kind of wisdom...
...and then he realized he’d just called a women “wizened” who was clearly less than 35, and remembered that the term is usually used to imply “age, wrinkles, and gray hair” rather than “theory and experience enhanced character”. Then he got all apologetic with “Wait I didn’t mean… um… that you seem… um… but of course...” and so on. His stumble and eventual repair was kind of cute. In any case, I took the whole thing as a compliment :-)
However, since that time I’ve wondered about whether the modern usage of “wizened” might be a corruption from a time when the world and the economy were conducive to old people having a lot of practically useful accumulated lessons about the way the world really is, so that wrinkles and smallness were frequently a sign of being very cognitively adapted to reality. A some point some people might have seen the term “wizened” being applied to people who had both the trait of physical age and the trait of “having been made wise by life” and inferred that the term was meant to be used specifically for the physical signs of age itself. Subsequent use, based on such a misapprehension, and codification of this usage, might have lead to the modern definition of wizened. Maybe?
WIZARD mid-15c., “philosopher, sage,” from M.E. wys “wise” (see wise (adj.)) + -ard. Cf. Lith. zynyste “magic,” zynys “sorcerer,” zyne “witch,” all from zinoti “to know.” The ground sense is perhaps “to know the future.” The meaning “one with magical power” did not emerge distinctly until c.1550, the distinction between philosophy and magic being blurred in the Middle Ages.
The etymology of witch is less obvious but possibly related to the same processes?
O.E. wis, from P.Gmc. wisaz (cf. O.S., O.Fris. wis, O.N. viss, Du. wijs, Ger. weise “wise”), from pp. adj. wittos of PIE base woid-/weid-/*wid- “to see,” hence “to know” (see vision). Slang meaning “aware, cunning” first attested 1896. Related to the source of O.E. witan “to know, wit.”
Wise guy is attested from 1896, Amer.Eng. Wisenheimer, with mock German or Yiddish surname suffix, first recorded 1904.
You’ve been cheated of your diacritics, and proper etymology with them. That’s /Ž/, which sounds like /Dj/ in djinn or /g/ in ginger. All the consonants are soft, stress is on the base, spelling is “žynystė” and “žynė” respectively. Semantics is a bit off too: ‘žynys’ is more of a prophet or a witch doctor than practitioner of sophisticated magics. Sadly, I cannot show how this is relevant to the origin of ‘wizard’.
I don’t think that’s the word you want to use, unless you’re talking about how you finally lost those 20 pounds by not drinking anymore.
I think you want “wised up”.
About 18 months ago I spoke with a man in a business situation about practical wisdom growing out of consciously structured practical skill development, in the course of a getting to know you conversation. He mentioned to me that I had a “wizened air” trying to refer to this kind of wisdom...
...and then he realized he’d just called a women “wizened” who was clearly less than 35, and remembered that the term is usually used to imply “age, wrinkles, and gray hair” rather than “theory and experience enhanced character”. Then he got all apologetic with “Wait I didn’t mean… um… that you seem… um… but of course...” and so on. His stumble and eventual repair was kind of cute. In any case, I took the whole thing as a compliment :-)
However, since that time I’ve wondered about whether the modern usage of “wizened” might be a corruption from a time when the world and the economy were conducive to old people having a lot of practically useful accumulated lessons about the way the world really is, so that wrinkles and smallness were frequently a sign of being very cognitively adapted to reality. A some point some people might have seen the term “wizened” being applied to people who had both the trait of physical age and the trait of “having been made wise by life” and inferred that the term was meant to be used specifically for the physical signs of age itself. Subsequent use, based on such a misapprehension, and codification of this usage, might have lead to the modern definition of wizened. Maybe?
Supporting evidence may lurk in the etymology of “wizard”?
The etymology of witch is less obvious but possibly related to the same processes?
etymology of “wise”
wizen
This looks as though “wise” and “wizened” have different sources, assuming that the etymology given is solid, and I have no idea how to evaluate that.
Also, even if the etymology is correct, I can imagine similar sounding words with related meanings affecting each other in use.
For what it’s worth, Google recognizes “wisened up”, but I don’t think I’d ever run into it before. I’m used to “wised up”.
You’ve been cheated of your diacritics, and proper etymology with them. That’s /Ž/, which sounds like /Dj/ in djinn or /g/ in ginger. All the consonants are soft, stress is on the base, spelling is “žynystė” and “žynė” respectively. Semantics is a bit off too: ‘žynys’ is more of a prophet or a witch doctor than practitioner of sophisticated magics. Sadly, I cannot show how this is relevant to the origin of ‘wizard’.