| 释义 |
wiseacre|ˈwaɪzˌeɪkə(r)|
Forms: 6–7 wise-aker, 7 wiseaker, wisacre, 7–8 wise acre, 7– wise-acre, wiseacre.
[ad. (with unexplained assimilation to acre) MDu. wijsseggher (ˈwaɪsˌzɛgər) soothsayer, app. ad. OHG. wîȥago, MHG. wîȥage (= OE. wíteᵹa witie n.), 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.
1595Enq. Tripe-wife (1881) 146 Shall he run vp and downe the town,..accompanied with some such wise-akers as himselfe. 1609Dekker Gulls Horn-bk. Proemium 5 Thou Lady of Clownes and Carters, Schoolemistres of fooles and wisacres. 1654Whitlock Zootomia 47 Syrupe of Poppy, (that edged Tool in the hands of such Doctor Wise⁓akers). 1711Steele Spect. No. 138 ⁋6 This Wiseacre was reckoned by the Parish, who did not understand him, a most excellent Preacher. 1810Scott Fam. Lett. 31 Dec. (1894) I. vi. 202 This wise-acre thinks he should have a finger in every man's pie. 1852Thackeray Esmond i. xiii, I have heard politicians and coffee-house wise-acres talking over the newspaper. 1874J. T. 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.
1613J. Taylor (Water P.) Laugh & be fat Wks. (1630) ii. 71/1 A learned wiseakers. 1615Tofte Varchi's Blazon Jealousie 24 note, Wiseakers her Husband, neuer so much as once doubting or dreaming of any such matter. 1673S'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.
1608Yorksh. Trag. i. iii, Is the rubbish sold, those wise⁓akers your lands? a1734North Exam. ii. v. §128 (1740) 394 If 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.)
1753in Gentl. Mag. XXIII. 417 (spuriously archaic) Pythagoras lerned muche—becomming a myghtye wyse⁓acre. 1814Sporting Mag. XLIV. 271 The concourse of wiseacres..was truly astonishing. 1842Thackeray Fitz-Boodle's Conf. Pref., It requires no great wiseacre to know that. 1902Sat. Rev. 29 Nov. 677/2 The stoic paradox that the cobbler who has got wisdom is the universal wiseacre.
Hence (nonce-wds.) ˈwiseˌacred |-əd| a., having the character of a wiseacre (in quot. with allusion to acre: cf. 1 c above), whence wiseacredness; ˈwiseˌacredom, the realm of wiseacres, wiseacres collectively; ˈwiseˌacreish |-ərɪʃ| a., like or characteristic of a wiseacre (whence wiseacreishness); ˈwiseˌacreism |-ərɪz(ə)m|, ˈwiseˌacrery |-ərɪ|, something characteristic of a wiseacre; pretension to or affectation of wisdom, or a remark exhibiting this.
1603Dekker Wonderful Year B 3, Each *wise-acred Landlord.
1848Earl Northbrook in Mallet Mem. (1908) 39 The conceited phraseology and would-be *wiseacredness of its professors.
1885A. Dobson Don Quix. in Sign of Lyre 93 To make *Wiseacredom, both high and low, Rub purblind eyes.
1834J. Wilson in Blackw. Mag. XXXVI. 415 He..then perpends, in a *wiseacreish pause, to consider if they are all to be found.
1895Saintsbury Corrected Impr. ii. 12 Ex post facto *wiseacre-ishness.
1861T. L. Peacock Gryll Grange xxiii, Whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more *wiseacre-ism about it.
1917Saintsbury Hist. Fr. Novel I. 371 Interrupting his vizier and the other tale-tellers with *wiseacreries. |