unwise (adj.)

Old English wis "learned, sagacious, cunning; sane; prudent, discreet; experienced; having the power of discerning and judging rightly," from Proto-Germanic *wissaz (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian wis, Old Norse viss, Dutch wijs, German weise "wise"), from past-participle adjective *wittos of PIE root *weid- "to see" (hence "to know"). Modern slang meaning "aware, cunning" first attested 1896. Related to the source of Old English witan "to know, wit."

A wise man has no extensive knowledge; He who has extensive knowledge is not a wise man. [Lao-tzu, "Tao te Ching," c. 550 B.C.E.]

Wise man was in Old English. Wise guy is attested from 1896, American English; wise-ass (n.) by 1966, American English (probably a literal sense is intended by the phrase in the 1607 comedy "Westward Hoe" by Dekker and Webster). Wisenheimer, with mock German or Yiddish surname suffix, first recorded 1904.

Old English unwislice "foolishly;" see unwise + -ly (2).

prefix of negation, Old English un-, from Proto-Germanic *un- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian, Old High German, German un-, Gothic un-, Dutch on-), from PIE *n- (source of Sanskrit a-, an- "not," Greek a-, an-, Old Irish an-, Latin in-), combining form of PIE root *ne- "not."

The most prolific of English prefixes, freely and widely used in Old English, where it forms more than 1,000 compounds. It disputes with Latin-derived cognate in- (1) the right to form the negation of certain words (indigestable/undigestable, etc.), and though both might be deployed in cooperation to indicate shades of meaning (unfamous/infamous), typically they are not. Often euphemistic (untruth for "lie").

It also makes words from phrases, such as uncalled-for, c. 1600; undreamed-of, 1630s. A mid-15c. description of a legal will has the word unawaydoable; Ben Jonson has un-in-one-breath-utterable. The word uncome-at-able is attested by 1690s; unputdownable, of a book, by 1947. The habit is not restricted to un-; compare put-up-able-with (1812).

As a prefix in telegraphese, to replace not and save the cost of a word, it is attested by 1936.

With the variety of its possible use, and the need of a negative for everything, the number of un- words that might be made in English is almost endless, and that some are used and some never is the caprice of authors.

Dictionary editors have noted this since 18c. but also padded the list. John Ash's "New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language" (1775) has many pages of one-lne un- entries; among a dozen consecutive entries are unhaggled, unhaired, unhalooed, unhaltering (adj.), unhaltering (n.), which sorts of words OED (1989) notes were "obviously manufactured for the purpose" and some turn up in other texts only decades later, if at all.