A.Word.A.Day --wiseacre

A.Word.A.Day

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Aug 20, 2012

This week's theme
Slang

This week's words
wiseacre
naff
suss
lulu
jazz

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

This week we sling the slang,
To add to your diction a little tang.
Pit these words into your patter,
Or let them into a letter.
But don't be a wiseacre,
Leave 'em out of a thesis or paper.

wiseacre

PRONUNCIATION:

(WYZ-ay-kuhr)

MEANING:

noun: One who obnoxiously pretends to be wise; smart-aleck; wise-guy.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Middle Dutch wijsseggher (soothsayer), translation of Middle High German wissage, from Old High German wissago (wise person), altered by folk etymology. Earliest documented use: 1595.

USAGE:

"Mr. Mahoney, the wiseacre dad on NBC's Frasier, here has the chance to play gruff and sarcastic until late in the play, when a lifetime of artifice crumbles and his guilt and pain are exposed."
Joel Henning; Artifice Unmasked; Chekhov Cluttered; The Wall Street Journal (New York); Jun 5, 2001.

See more usage examples of wiseacre in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed. -Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)

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