{UAH} WORD OF THE DAY February 8, 2019---wiseacre

WORD OF THE DAY February 8, 2019

wiseacre    noun | WYZE-ay-ker     Definition   : one who pretends to knowledge or cleverness; especially : smart aleck   Scroll down for more about wiseacre      TRENDING NOW: apoplectic suffragette abject bipartisan SEE ALL      PEOPLE ARE READING   Doing the Work of the 'Edgelord'       'Abstruse' — Video Word of the Day 2/7/2019     Try Not to Slip on 'Peel' and 'Peal'       'Ratiocination' — Video Word of the Day 2/6/2019         WORD GAMES AND QUIZZES: WEEKLY CHALLENGE   Valentine's Day Quiz   A quiz for lovers and haters     PLAY NOW     Nailed this quiz? We have plenty more to try!  TAKE ME THERE         Did You Know?   Given the spelling and definition of wiseacre, you might guess that the word derives from the sense of wise meaning "insolent" or "fresh"—the sense that also gives us wise guy, wisecrack, and wisenheimer. But, in fact, wiseacrecame to English by a different route: it is derived from the Middle Dutch wijssegger, meaning "soothsayer." Wiseacre first appeared in English way back in the 16th century, while the "insolent" sense of wise and the words formed from it are products of the 19th century. The etymologies of wiseacreand wise are not completely distinct, however; the ancestors of wiseacre are loosely tied to the same Old English root that gave us wise.     Examples of WISEACRE   "Regardless of how they choose to do so, most people who contact Congress have legitimate concerns—but, as any staffer can tell you, there is a small but enduring subgroup of wiseacres and crackpots. Moore, the former congressional staffer, once took a call from a man who claimed, in all seriousness, to be the true and rightful owner of the moon." — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 6 Mar. 2017   "A French nobleman-soldier who is mad for love and poetry in roughly equal measure, a chivalric wiseacre adept at wordplay and swordplay alike, Cyrano requires an actor who is both physically and intellectually nimble." — Don Aucoin, The Boston Globe, 20 July 2018   Name That Synonym   What synonym of wiseacre is a compound of a word that means "brainy" and another that refers to an item of clothing?   VIEW THE ANSWER           WORD OF THE YEAR 2018     Justice + 10 more   Read why justice is our Word of the Year, plus lodestar, epiphany, pansexual, and 7 more top words!   SEE THE FULL LIST            MORE WORD FUN:     WORD GAMES          TRENDING NOW          WORDS AT PLAY      FOLLOW US:

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