Emily Dickinson Lexicon

widen, v. [see wide, adj.]

Enlarge; expand; broaden in capacity; become more open; grow in qualities such as space, sympathy, love, empathy.

wide-wandering, verbal adj. [see wide, adj. and wandering, verbal adj.]

Far-traveling; seeking everywhere; rambling great distances.

width (-s), n. [OE widnes.] (webplay: Door, thing).

1. Spread; territory; huge expanse.
2. Emptiness; vacancy; capacity.
3. Band; view.
4. Breadth; narrowness.
5. Size; limit; measurement.

wife ('s, wives), n. [Sax. wif, woman.] (webplay: husband, love, man, wedlock, woman).

1. Lady; human female who has achieved maturity; one who is officially part of a couple; one who has crossed from girlhood into womanhood; woman who has pledged love, trust, constancy, affection.
2. Mate; partner.
3. Bride; newlywed; experienced woman; one who is no longer a maid; [fig.] resurrected being; bride of Christ; one victorious over death.
4. Spouse; sweetheart; homemaker; marriage companion; one who accepts the obligations and opportunities of a marriage relationship; person who abides by the privileges, status, requirements, and responsibilities of marriage.
5. Queen; royal consort; lover; beloved; woman linked to a husband by legal contract; female sealed in a covenant relationship by religious rites.

wifehood, n. [see wife, n.] (webplay: wife).

Being a bride; life as a married woman; [metonymy] matrimony; wedlock; union; legal marriage; consummated love; [fig.] redemption; paradisiacal glory; heavenly bliss; fulfillment of promises; union of body, spirit, heart, and mind through the resurrection.

wild (-er), adj. [OE wilde, bewildered, astray.]

1. Stormy; windy; experiencing rough weather; [fig.] intense; stressed; highly charged with emotion.
2. Turbulent; tempestuous; tumultuous.
3. Native; undomesticated; uncultivated; untamed; common; raised in a natural state.
4. Wondrous; miraculous; remarkable; marvelous.
5. Uninhabited; unpopulated; unsettled; not easily accessible; like a wilderness.
6. Impetuous; rash; thoughtless; imprudent; irresponsible; unreasonable.
7. Phrase. “Wild nights”: process of dying; time of death; passing away to the other side (see L331, ED's 1869 letter to Perez Cowan, “Dying is a wild Night”).

wild, adv. [see wild, adj.]

Stridently; without restraint; with loud ringing; with constant noise.

wilderness, n. [OE *wild(d)éornes, place of wild animals.] (webplay: desert, human).

1. Emptiness; bleakness; desolation; hollowness.
2. Badlands; wasteland; uncivilized region; uninhabited area; unknown expanse; uncultivated tract of land; [fig.] mortality; the trials of earthly life.

wile, n. [early ME wil.] (webplay: against).

Trick; stratagem; snare; deception; craftiness; enticement; temptation; beguiling; insidious artifice.

will, n. [OE willa.]

1. Desire; wish; longing; liking, inclination; disposition to do something.
2. Volition; faculty of mind which exercises judgment.
3. Commandment; counsel; divine purpose.
4. Choice; determination; selection.
5. Favor; endowment; inheritance; testament; deposition of an estate.