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.