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The Learning Kingdom's Cool Word of the Day for March 30, 1999
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wilderness [n. WIL-dur-nis]
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Wilderness is where wild creatures live. It's unspoiled nature, or
land that has been allowed to "go back to nature," especially if that
land is uninhabited by humans. The wilderness is certainly wilder
than inhabited land, but the original meaning was not a comparison of
relative wildness.
The word's ancestor in Old English was wildeornis, which translates as
"wild deerness," or more accurately, "wild beastness," specifically
the state of being a wild animal. The root of that was wilddeor (wild
beast), from Old English wilde (wild) and deor (wild animal).
The modern animal called a deer got its name from a much-narrowed
interpretation of Old English deor. Reindeer also inherited part of
their name from the same root, and the related German word for animal
is Tier.
Reindeer is also a cool word:
http://www.cool-word.com/archive/1998/10/20.html
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