Home › Words › U › umbworldumbworldumbworld means the surrounding world; the world or sphere about one; the environment.EtymologyFrom umb- (“around, about”) + world, a calque of German Umwelt (early 19th c.). Compare Dutch omwereld, Swedish omvärld, etc., also from the German.nounThe surrounding world; the world or sphere about one; the environment.e.g.“Religion has grown out of our folk knowledge, out of our group explanations of the how’s and why’s of the umbworld.” — 2009, Nature and World Cultures, Religious Ritual and Dissociation:Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).