What does "smart-alecky" mean?

Having the quality of a smart aleck; rude, disrespectful.

What is a synonym for "smart-alecky"?

Common synonyms include: bantering, biggety, bluff, bold, bold faced, brash.

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Adjective

1
Having the quality of a smart aleck; rude, disrespectful.
"The Katzenjammer Kids were fun because they made the adults look stupid. But they were a little too smart-alecky for my taste."

"The Katzenjammer Kids were fun because they made the adults look stupid. But they were a little too smart-alecky for my taste."

From smart aleck + -y.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.