"The world" is a proper noun for the planet Earth envisioned from an anthropocentric or human worldview, as a place inhabited by human beings and other terrestrial lifes. It is often used to signify the sum of human experience and history, or the 'human condition' in general. The world population is approximately 6.68 billion people.

In a metaphysical context, World may refer to everything that constitutes reality and the Universe: see World (philosophy).

Etymology

In English, world may be parsed as rooted in a compound of the obsolete words were, "man", and eld, "age"; thus, its etymology may be semantically rendered as "age or life of man". Compare to the word for "world" in a closely related language to English, Dutch, which is "wereld."

Usage

'World' can also be used attributively, as an adjective, to mean 'global', 'relating to the whole world', forming usages such as World community. See World (adjective).

By extension, a 'world' may refer to any planet or heavenly body, especially when it is thought of as inhabited.

'World', when qualified, can also refer to a particular domain of human experience.

• The world of work describes paid work and the pursuit of a career, in all its social aspects, to distinguish it from home life and academic study.
• The fashion world describes the environment of the designers, fashion houses and consumers that make up the fashion industry.
• The New World is a part of the world discovered or colonized by Europeans later than other parts; it usually refers to the American continents or to Australia. Native Americans and Native Australians tend to dislike this usage. For them America and Australia are not new. Their ancestors have lived there since time immemorial. The Old World refers, by contrast, to the continents of Europe, Asia and north Africa.

Earth

Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands; liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not known to exist on any other planet's surface.Other planets in the solar system are either too hot or too cold to support liquid water. However, it is confirmed to have existed on the surface of Mars in the past, and may still appear today. See: Earth's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.