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I've been encountering "worldly-renowned" or "worldly-known" used as an expression of "world-famous". Here is one of the examples:

Several worldly-renowned car manufacturers (e.g., Piaggio, GE, Fiat India, M. Benz, Porsche, Jaguar, VW, Bajaj Auto, Force Motors, and Mahindra Navistar) also set up their own plants or made investment in the region, which are not far away from the exhibition centre, offering some opportunities to relevant fastener suppliers to connect their business with these potential customers.

Personally I found this expression odd and have done research to find that "wordly" is used to describe things that are physical instead of spiritual, or people who are more experienced or well-rounded. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/worldly

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/worldly

However, if you do a Google search with the keyword "worldly known", you'd find tens of thousands of usage, some of which seemingly express "world-famous".

Is "worldly-renowned" or "worldly-known" an actual word and can it mean "world-famous" to your ears?

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  • When I googled worldly known, few if any results actually contained that phrase; most of them either relate to world-famous or similar, or else contain the word worldly on its own.
    – Kate Bunting
    Jul 6, 2020 at 8:46

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I think "worldly-renowned" is a simple typo or error for world-renowned. "Worldly renowned" would technically be grammatical, although it should be written without a hyphen; but it doesn't make much sense. In this construction worldly would act as an adverb modifying renowned and suggest contrast against something like ethereally or spiritually renowned (which also don't make sense).

"World-renowned," on the other hand, simply means "renowned around the world."

I don't recall ever seeing or hearing "world-known." As Kate Bunting suggested in a comment, I also can't find any authoritative/canonical sources using it in web search results. "World-famous" is the idiomatic alternative.

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  • I could only suppose whoever used "worldly" in such way didn't look up dictionaries to find the difference between world and worldly. I agree with what you pointed out.
    – Dean
    Jul 6, 2020 at 15:04
  • It looks like a fairly simple finger-fumble to me - its quite common to type letters in the wrong order, and then to simply not notice, particularly in one's own native tongue, as the brain does auto-correction when reading.
    – MikeB
    Jul 6, 2020 at 15:34
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As already noted, Worldly is almost certainly a typo for World.

Having said that, World Renowned is not quite the same thing as World-Famous - the latter doesn't really suggest that "the thing" is particularly special, whereas World-Renowned specifically refers to Companies (in this case) that are held in high regard across the world, and not necessarily well known.

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  • I kind of get that feeling too. Now that you pointed it out, perhaps "renowned" is more connected to a sense of higher reputation and respect from the public.
    – Dean
    Jul 6, 2020 at 15:08
  • @Dean Yes, renowned definitely conveys a degree of respect and admiration, while "famous" is neutral: one can be famous for good or bad reasons. Often, but not always, infamous is used when someone is famous for bad reasons.
    – TypeIA
    Jul 6, 2020 at 15:18

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