worldly
adj.having a lot of experience with life and people. You use this to describe someone who is sophisticated and knows how the world works.
adj.possessing extensive experience of life and sophisticated social knowledge. Often implies a lack of naivety or a focus on material and practical concerns rather than spiritual ones.
“She is very worldly and knows how to handle difficult people.”
“After years of traveling as a foreign correspondent, he returned home with a worldly perspective that his old friends lacked.”
“The protagonist's worldly exterior masked a deep-seated idealism that the harsh realities of the city had not yet managed to extinguish.”
Often used to describe people, their attitudes, or their level of experience. Can be used both attributively and predicatively.
“She says she is at peace with the fact all her worldly possessions fit in a bedroom that is no more than 12ft long, by eight feet wide.”
“But most Buddhists see this goal as out of reach in this lifetime and instead have desires for worldly things , such as getting a job, winning the lottery or finding a spouse.”
From Middle English worldly, worldlich, wordly (adjective), from Old English woruldlīċ, worldlīċ, weoroldlīċ (“worldly; earthly; temporal; mundane; secular”), from Proto-Germanic *weraldilīkaz, equivalent to world + -ly. Cognate with Dutch wereldlijk (“worldly; secular”), German Low German weltlik (“worldly”), German weltlich (“worldly”), Danish verdslig (“worldly”), Swedish världslig (“worldly”), Icelandic veraldlegur (“worldly; secular”).
From Middle English worldly, worldliche, wordly (adverb), from Old English woroldlīċe, weoroldlīċe; equivalent to world + -ly (adverbial suffix).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.