Forms: 6–7 wise- -aker, 7 wiseaker, wisacre, 7–8 wise acre, 7– wise-acre, wiseacre. [ad. (with unexplained assimilation to acre) MDu. wijsseggher soothsayer, app. ad. OHG. wîȥago, MHG. wîȥage (= OE. wíteʓa WITIE sb.), with assimilation to wijs WISE a. and seggher SAYER.]
1. One who thinks himself, or wishes to be thought, wise; a pretender to wisdom; a foolish person with an air or affectation of wisdom.
1595. Enq. Tripe-wife (1881), 146. Shall he run vp and downe the town,… accompanied with some such wise-akers as himselfe.
1609. Dekker, Gulls Horn-bk., Proemium 5. Thou Lady of Clownes and Carters, Schoolemistres of fooles and wisacres.
1654. R. Whitlock, Ζωοτομια, 47. Syrupe of Poppy, (that edged Tool in the hands of such Doctor Wiseakers).
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 138, ¶ 6. This Wiseacre was reckoned by the Parish, who did not understand him, a most excellent Preacher.
1810. Scott, Fam. Lett., 31 Dec. (1894), I. vi. 202. This wise-acre thinks he should have a finger in every man’s pie.
1852. Thackeray, Esmond, I. xiii. I have heard politicians and coffee-house wise-acres talking over the newspaper.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 115. The architect … is lectured on his own art by wiseacres, whose whole stock of knowledge is got up from ‘Parker’s Glossary.’
† b. Used in pl. form of a single person; sometimes as a quasi-proper name. Obs.
1613[?]. J. Taylor (Water P.), Laugh & be fat, Wks. (1630), II. 71/1. A learned wiseakers.
1615. Tofte, Varchi’s Blazon Jealousie, 24, note. Wiseakers her Husband, neuer so much as once doubting or dreaming of any such matter.
1673. S’ too him Bayes, 9. When he has done (like a wise-acres) he makes nothing of it.
¶ c. With allusion to acres as = ‘lands’; in first quot. app. applied to a landed estate.
1608. Yorksh. Trag., I. iii. Is the rubbish sold, those wiseakers your lands?
a. 1734. North, Exam., II. v. § 128 (1740), 394. I wise by their Acres, or, in a word Wiseacres, it was expected the Guineys should come out, for the Uses of Mobbing.
2. A wise or learned person, a sage. (Usually contemptuous.)
1753. in Gentl. Mag., XXIII. 417–8 (spuriously archaic). Peter Gower … lerned muche … becommynng a myghtye Wyseacre.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIV. 271. The concourse of wiseacres … was truly astonishing.
1842. Thackeray, Fitz-Boodle’s Conf., Pref. It requires no great wiseacre to know that.
1902. Cloudesley Brereton, in Sat. Rev., 29 Nov., 677/2. The stoic paradox that the cobbler who has got wisdom is the universal wiseacre.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Wiseacred a., having the character of a wiseacre (in quot. with allusion to acre: cf. 1 c above), whence wiseacredness; Wiseacredom, the realm of wiseacres, wiseacres collectively; Wiseacreish a., like or characteristic of a wiseacre (whence wiseacreishness); Wiseacreism, Wiseacrery, something characteristic of a wiseacre; pretension to or affectation of wisdom, or a remark exhibiting this.
1603. Dekker, Wonderful Year, B 3. Each *wise-acred Landlord.
1848. Earl Northbrook, in B. Mallet, Mem. (1908), 39. It [political economy] is a mystery more from the conceited phraseology and would-be *wiseacredness of its professors than anything else.
1885. A. Dobson, Don Quix., in Sign of Lyre, 93.
| To make *Wiseacredom, both high and low, | |
| Rub purblind eyes. |
1834. J. Wilson, in Blackw. Mag., XXXVI. 415. He … then perpends, in a *wiseacreish pause, to consider if they are all to be found.
1895. Saintsbury, Corrected Impressions, ii. 12. Ex post facto *wiseacre-ishness.
1861. T. L. Peacock, Gryll Grange, xxiii. Whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more *wiseacre-ism about it.
1917. Saintsbury, Hist. Fr. Novel, I. 371. The Sultan is … fond of interrupting his vizier and the other tale-tellers with *wiseacreries.
