Editing World (section)

== Etymology ==
The [[English language|English]] word ''[[:wikt:world|world]]'' comes from the [[Old English]] {{Lang|ang|weorold}}. The Old English is a reflex of the [[Common Germanic]] ''*''{{Lang|mis|weraldiz}}<!-- Proto-Germanic -->, a compound of {{Lang|mis|weraz}} 'man' and {{Lang|mis|aldiz}} 'age', thus literally meaning roughly 'age of man';<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bartleby.com/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080512075921/http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE588.html|url-status=dead|title=Homework Help and Textbook Solutions &#124; bartleby|archive-date=12 May 2008|website=Bartleby.com}}</ref> this word led to [[Old Frisian]] {{Lang|ofs|warld}}, [[Old Saxon]] {{Lang|osx|werold}}, [[Old Dutch]] {{Lang|odt|werolt}}, [[Old High German]] {{Lang|goh|weralt}}, and [[Old Norse]] {{Lang|non|verǫld}}.<ref>Orel, Vladimir (2003) ''A Handbook of Germanic Etymology'' Leiden: Brill. p. 462 {{ISBN|90-04-12875-1}}.</ref>

The corresponding word in [[Latin]] is {{Lang|la|mundus}}, literally 'clean, elegant', itself a [[Calque|loan translation]] of Greek ''[[cosmos]]'' 'orderly arrangement'. While the Germanic word thus reflects a mythological notion of a "domain of Man" (compare [[Midgard]]), presumably as opposed to the divine sphere on the one hand and the [[chthonic]] sphere of the underworld on the other, the Greco-Latin term expresses a notion of [[Creation myth|creation]] as an act of establishing order out of [[chaos (cosmogony)|chaos]].<ref name="Lewis" />