Origin: Germanic Old English suffix
Wilderness has 5 different meanings across 1 category:
a wooded region in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania where bloody but inconclusive battles were fought in the American Civil War
"The Wilderness battlefield, located in northeastern Virginia near Spotsylvania, was the site of two bloody but inconclusive engagements during the American Civil War."
a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition
"it was a wilderness preserved for the hawks and mountaineers"
a bewildering profusion
"the duties of citizenship are lost sight of in the wilderness of interests of individuals and groups"
"a wilderness of masts in the harbor"
Uncultivated and unsettled land in its natural state inhabited by wild animals and with vegetation growing wild; (countable) a tract of such land; a waste or wild.
"The hikers trekked deep into the wilderness, where towering pines and roaming deer marked their journey through untouched nature."
In plain English: Wilderness is an area of land that has no people living there and very few buildings or roads built by humans.
"We drove deep into the wilderness to find some quiet peace away from the city noise."
Usage: Use wilderness to describe large, uncultivated areas where nature exists without human development. It is often confused with forest or jungle, but specifically implies vastness and isolation rather than just dense tree cover.
From Middle English wildernes, wildernesse ("desolate or uninhabited place, desolation") [and other forms], and then either: from Middle English wilderne ("deserted or uninhabited place, wilderness; land not yet settled") [and other forms] (from Old English wilddeōren ("savage, wild"); see below) + -nes, -nesse (suffix forming abstract nouns denoting qualities or states); or from Old English wildēornes, wilddēornes, either from wilddēor ("wild animal") [and other forms] or wilddēoren ("sav..."