The word world is interesting.

It is essentially directly from the Old English [OE] and is derived from compounding OE wer with OE yldo to become OE weorold. Wer meant man and yldo meant (his) age, (his) experience in the span of his life; thus we have the idea of world as an attribute of personality or personal experience.  "His world" as experienced, accurately implies the immaterial, subjective view, a knowing, some-thing alternative to the material earth, eorth [OE].  World did not come toward present day synonymity with earth until the Middle Ages.

[Walter W Skeat, The Concise Dictionary of English Etymology, Wordsworth Reference, 1993, p569]

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