wise man

• wiseman

wise + man

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwʌɪzman/

• Audio (US):

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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 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 / 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.

• wise woman

• Weisman, Wiemans, Wiesman, manwise