Learn English – the opposite of someone who has been sheltered

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I am looking for a word to describe a teenager as someone who is "not sheltered." Someone who has been exposed to many different people, communities and ways of thinking. Worldly seems too broad of a word as it should relate to experiences within his community. I'm also looking for a word that more closely relates to how he was raised and what he was allowed to have access too. If a child is not sheltered they are what?

Best Answer

Actually street-smart or streetwise makes a very good opposite to sheltered. Here is the entry in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary for streetwise:

streetwise adj (1965): possessing the skills and attitudes necessary to survive in a difficult or dangerous situation or environment

Given how recently streetwise and street-smart (which MW says dates to 1974) arose, they may have been coined in direct contrast to sheltered. Google Books finds instances of "sheltered life" in its modern sense from at least as long ago as 1854, in Youthful Pilgrims; or, Memorials of Young Persons of the Society of Friends.