• wisenheimer •
Pronunciation: wai-zên-hai-mêr • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: (Slang) 1. A smart aleck, a wise guy, a know-it-all; an upstart who makes conceited, insolent comments. 2. Someone whose jokes are funny only to himself or herself.
Notes: English, of course, wallows in a plethora of facetious words, mostly contrived by us Americans, who seem to play with English more than work with it. Wisenheimer is up (or down) there with gobbledegook, snollygoster, high-falutin', to just touch the tip of the iceberg.
In Play: Wisenheimers are conceited people who think that they know it all: "The wisenheimer told Lucy that if she had the sense the good Lord gave a goose, she would not have served up a swan instead of a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner." A wisenheimer's sense of humor never jibes with our own: "Sorry, ma'am; some wisenheimer told me this was the men's restroom."
Word History: Today's Good and funny Word is a concoction of the adjective wise + German -enheimer found in such surnames as Oppenheimer, Frankenheimer, Schottenheimer. The implication comes from the turn of the century when the most brilliant scientific minds were assumed to be in Germany. This "ending" in words like Oppenheimer is really the suffix -er "person who", also found in English, added to Oppenheim, the name of a town. Heim is a German equivalent (and relative) of English home, so Oppenheim originally referred to the estate of a 6th century German nobleman by the name of Obbo. (Although he can be something of a wisenheimer, Larry Brady was just doing his usual good job in suggesting this very Good Word for our series)
WISENHEIMER
- Dr. Goodword
- Site Admin
- Posts: 7450
- Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
- Location: Lewisburg, PA
- Contact:
WISENHEIMER
• The Good Dr. Goodword
-
- Great Grand Panjandrum
- Posts: 2578
- Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:56 pm
- Location: Crownsville, MD
Re: WISENHEIMER
MOI?. . . (Although he can be something of a wisenheimer, Larry Brady . . .
Regards//Larry
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee
Return to “Good Word Discussion”
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: Ahrefs [Bot], Semrush [Bot] and 103 guests