Wiseacre
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 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."
- 2 an upstart who makes conceited, sardonic, insolent comments wordnet
- 3 A learned or wise man. obsolete
"A fool's paradise is better than a wiseacre's purgatory."
- 1 To act like a wiseacre; to wisecrack.
Example
More examples"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."
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”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.