unwisdom

noun

1. (uncountable)Lack of wisdom; unwise action or conduct; folly, foolishness.

   “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, […]”

   “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.”

   “[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.”

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

   “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.”

2. (countable, uncountable)An instance of a lack of wisdom; a foolish act.

   “For hereby are fostered, fed into gigantic bulk, all manner of Unwisdoms, poison-fruits; till, as we way, the life-tree everywhere is made a upas-tree, deadly Unwisdom overshadowing all things; […]”

   “Between these two extremes, of human wisdom on the one hand, and human ignorance on the other, all manner of half wisdoms and unwisdoms, of appetites, passions, and self-denials, of convictions and prejudices, jostle one another in contending for partial and temporary dominion over the mind and the habits of man.”

   “Is the fall of a stone certain: and the fruit of an unwisdom doubtful?”

   “Mr. [Macvey] Napier's little book is a reprint of two Edinburgh Review articles on [Francis] Bacon and Raleigh. The first, a learned statement of facts in answer to some unwisdom of a Quarterly reviewer (possibly an Oxford Aristotelian; for 'we think we do know that sweet Roman hand').”

3. (countable, rare, uncountable)A foolish or unwise being or force.

   “[W]hat great thing ever happened in this world, a world understood always to be made and governed by a Providence and Wisdom, not by an Unwisdom, without meaning somewhat?”