Monday, January 14, 2013

Word of the Day -- Wiseacre

Wiseacre is defined as: the staff of Troll Lord Games. :-)  Actually it is: one who pretends to knowledge or cleverness; especially : smart aleck which I suppose does tend to define those of us at TLG.  The word has an interesting derivation.  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 gives us "wisecrack" and "wisenheimer." But, in fact, "wiseacre" came to English by a different route; it derived from the Middle Dutch "wijssegger" (meaning "soothsayer"), a modification of the Old High German "wÄ«zzago." "Wiseacre" first appeared in English way back in the late 16th century, while the "insolent" sense of "wise" and the words formed from it are products of the 19th and 20th centuries. The etymologies of "wiseacre" and "wise" are not completely distinct, however; the ancestors of "wiseacre" are loosely tied to the same Old English root that gave us "wise."
Pretty cool huh? 

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