Smart
Smart adjective - Having a wide and refined knowledge of the world especially from personal experience.
Usage example: a novelist who got much of the material for his works by hanging out with the smart set
Worldly and smart are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Worldly" instead an adjective "Smart".
Worldly
Worldly adjective - Having a wide and refined knowledge of the world especially from personal experience.
Usage example: she returned from her year as an exchange student a much more worldly person
Smart and worldly are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Smart" instead an adjective "Worldly".
Mutual synonyms
Both words in one sentence
- A classic inversion of the "not book smart but street smart" phrase, their scholarly knowledge far exceeds their worldly knowledge.
Source: Nerds Are Innocent - Brainless Beauty/Dumb Blonde: Princess Tulip Morningstar — but only because she wasn't given the chance to become worldly-wise and book smart, which would have made her a much happier person.
Source: Literature / A Tale of -
A prim and proper book-smart princess with little worldly experience, and an aggressive mage who's big on getting stuff done on her own when no one can help.
Source: Odd Friendship
Cite this Source
Worldly and Smart. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 15, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/smart/worldly
Smart & Worldly. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/smart/worldly>.
Worldly or Smart. 2016. Accessed August 15, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/smart/worldly.
Google Ngram Viewer shows how "smart" and "worldly" have occurred on timeline