wiseling

English

Etymology

From wise +‎ -ling.

Noun

wiseling (plural wiselings)

  1. One who pretends to be wise; a wiseacre.
    This may well put to the blush those wiselings that show themselves fools in so speaking. ― Donne.
    • 1920, Henry Osborn Taylor, Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century:
      This is the book that makes fools of little wiselings.
    • 2010, Bernard Edward Joseph Capes, At a Winter's Fire:
      What! a score o' wiselings, and not one to hit oot the means and the way?"
    • 2012, Anton LaVey, Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right:
      A wiseling keeps his real sentiments on this point to himself – guards them as his own life. The best mask for moral heresy is one of pretended sanctity.
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