wiseacre
noun/ˈwaɪzeɪkə(ɹ)/
Etymology
From Middle Dutch wijssegger (“soothsayer”), from Old High German wīzzago, wīzago (“wise man, prophet, soothsayer”), from Proto-West Germanic *wītagō (“wise one; prophet”). Cognate with Old English wītga (“wise man, prophet”). See also German Weissager (“soothsayer, seer”).
- derived from *wītagō✻
- derived from wīzzago
- borrowed from wijssegger
Definitions
One who feigns knowledge or cleverness
One who feigns knowledge or cleverness; one who is wisecracking; an insolent upstart.
- That other class of wiseacres who twist prophecy in such a manner as to make it promise the destruction and desolation of the same city, use judgement just as bad, since the city is in a very flourishing condition now, unhappily for them.
- But noooooo! Some wiseacre “expert” will patronizingly explain that because gymnast Kim Zmeskal’s left little toenail was off center by the length of an eyelash, the judges will be forced to dock a tenth of a point from her score.
A learned or wise man.
- A fool's paradise is better than a wiseacre's purgatory.
- At their village the woman consulted the local wiseacre, explaining the difficulties her son-in-law was creating.
To act like a wiseacre
To act like a wiseacre; to wisecrack.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for wiseacre. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA