Dictionary

wiseling en · NOUN

Etymology

From wise + -ling.

Meanings

1. One who pretends to be wise; a wiseacre.
   • 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. 2012, Anton LaVey, Ragnar Redbeard, Might is Right:
   • This is the book that makes fools of little wiselings. 1920, Henry Osborn Taylor, Thought and Expression in the Sixteenth Century:
   • What! a score o' wiselings, and not one to hit oot the means and the way?" 2010, Bernard Edward Joseph Capes, At a Winter's Fire:
   • This may well put to the blush those wiselings that show themselves fools in so speaking. ― Donne.

Forms