Definition of "unwisdom"

And all we conſyderynge her gracyous and charytable mynde, ſo unyuerſally, and conſyderyng the redyneſs of mercy and pyte in our Savyour Jheſu, may ſay, by lamentable complaynt of our unwyſedome, unto hym. Ah Domine! ſi fuiſſes hic—Ah my Lorde! yf thou had ben preſente, […]

1509 (date delivered), Johan [i.e., John] Fisher, “A Mornynge Remembrance, had at the Moneth Minde of the Noble Prynces Margarete Countesse of Richmonde and Darbye, Moder unto Kynge Henry the Seventh, and Grandame to Our Soveraign Lorde that Now is. Upon whose Soul Almightye GOD Have Mercy.”, in The Funeral Sermon of Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, Mother to King Henry VII. and Foundress of Christ’s, and St John’s College in Cambridge, […], London: […] A. Bosvile, […], published 1708, pages 22–23

Eccle[siasticus] 21. 15. […] Forſooth vnvviſedome is, &c. [i.e., which is plenteous in euill.] Sixtus [Pope Sixtus V] and the Louans, reading it amiſſe.Pointing out that in the Leuven Vulgate Bible and the Sixtine Vulgate commissioned by Pope Sixtus V based on it there was a misreading of the word wisdom as unwisdom in Sirach (or Ecclesiasticus) 21:15: “But there is a wisdom that aboundeth in evil: and there is no understanding where there is bitterness.”

1612, Thomas Iames [i.e., James], “The Third Part. The Varietie & Contrarietie of the Popish Bibles, Commonlie Called the Vulgar Bibles in Latine.”, in A Treatise of the Corruption of Scripture, Councels, and Fathers, […], new edition, London: […] H[umphrey] L[ownes] for Mathew Lownes […], paragraph 20, page 13

[T]he French government has committed the unwisdom of persecuting the Saint-Simonians. Persecution is always a bungler's craft, that in trying to stop one hole opens two.

1832 April, [Thomas Perronet Thompson], “Art. I.—Doctrine de Saint-Simon. Exposition. Première Année. 1829.—Seconde Edition. Paris. Mesnier. 8vo. pp. 431 […] [book review]”, in The Westminster Review, volume XVI, number XXXII, London: […] Robert Heward, […], page 321

The Earth is good, bountifully sends food and increase; if man's unwisdom did not intervene and forbid.

1839 (indicated as 1840), Thomas Carlyle, “Finest Peasantry in the World”, in Chartism, London: James Fraser, […], page 27

But as the sentence of Clement [Pope Clement VII] sealed the fate of the Nun of Kent [Elizabeth Barton], so the unwisdom of his successor [Pope Paul III] bore similarly fatal fruits.

1856, James Anthony Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth, volume II, London: John W[illiam] Parker and Son, […], page 371

A very common engine fault, leaking joints, provides an example of the unwisdom of undertaking design modification without full service experience. […] After only a short period of service, however, so many railways requested a reversion to the original type that the modification had to be abandoned.

1963 February, “Diesel Locomotive Faults and Their Remedies”, in Modern Railways, Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan Publishing, page 99

He spoke of criminal carelessness and culpable stupidity; he spoke of the unwisdom of volunteering one's services as a guinea pig.

1970 October, Larry Niven, “The Ring Floor”, in Ringworld, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published January 1976, page 135

Reporting from Vietnam in 1945, he may have been the first person to assert the extreme unwisdom of trying to restore French colonialism with British troops.

2010, Christopher Hitchens, “The Fenton Factor”, in Hitch-22: A Memoir, London: Atlantic Books, page 151