Electronic Resources

I just realized that many of you poor souls in post-graduation land don't have access to the 1500 networked electronic resources available through the university.

Great Scott! You probably don't even have the OED! To partially remedy your misfortune, perhaps I will post some entries. Do you feel better now?

Weisenheimer

U.S. slang.

[f. WISE a. + -enheimer, as in German names such as Oppenheimer.]
A wiseacre, a ‘clever dick’. Also attrib. or as adj.
1904 R. L. MCCARDELL Show Girl & her Friends 51 He wants to know some good way to reduce his weight... You don't know any such a way? No? Why, I thought you was a wiseheimer. 1919 MENCKEN Amer. Lang. v. 151 Several years ago -heimer had a great vogue in slang, and was rapidly done to death. But wiseheimer remains in colloquial use as a facetious synonym for smart-aleck, and after awhile it may gradually acquire dignity. 1919 National Police Gaz. (U.S.) 4 Jan. 3/1 Cawkins..like a true Wisenheimer, considered the gentle, goosey kind of a beautiful girl the most appetizing. 1922 S. LEWIS Babbitt xxiv. 287 The wisenheimers grab a look at a fellow's nails when they want to tell if he's a tinhorn or a real gent! 1937 Amer. Speech XII. 9/2 Some wiseheimer American newspaper man has picked this up and tagged it onto President Hoover. 1957 J. D. SALINGER Franny & Zooey (1964) 65 We were nervous..at the statistics on child pedants and academic weisenheimers who grow up into faculty-recreation-room savants. 1959 Washington Post 26 Dec. A19/2 Then some wisenheimer from the agency decided we needed a trailer. 1975 Times Lit. Suppl. 21 Feb. 185/1 The wisenheimer who gets his ornate come-uppance. 1977 M. BABSON Murder, Murder, Little Star vii. 50, I shoulda listened to her. But..I was too wisenheimer.

Wiseacre

1. One who thinks himself, or wishes to be thought, wise; a pretender to wisdom; a foolish person with an air or affectation of wisdom.
1595 Enq. Tripe-wife (1881) 146 Shall he run vp and downe the town,..accompanied with some such wise-akers as himselfe. 1609 DEKKER Gulls Horn-bk. Proemium 5 Thou Lady of Clownes and Carters, Schoolemistres of fooles and wisacres. 1654 WHITLOCK Zootomia 47 Syrupe of Poppy, (that edged Tool in the hands of such Doctor Wise~akers). 1711 STEELE Spect. No. 138 6 This Wiseacre was reckoned by the Parish, who did not understand him, a most excellent Preacher. 1810 SCOTT Fam. Lett. 31 Dec. (1894) I. vi. 202 This wise-acre thinks he should have a finger in every man's pie. 1852 THACKERAY Esmond I. xiii, I have heard politicians and coffee-house wise-acres talking over the newspaper. 1874 J. T. MICKLETHWAITE Mod. Par. Churches 115 The architect..is lectured on his own art by wiseacres, whose whole stock of knowledge is got up from ‘Parker's Glossary’.
b. Used in pl. form of a single person; sometimes as a quasi-proper name. Obs.
?1613 J. TAYLOR (Water P.) Laugh & be fat Wks. (1630) II. 71/1 A learned wiseakers. 1615 TOFTE Varchi's Blazon Jealousie 24 note, Wiseakers her Husband, neuer so much as once doubting or dreaming of any such matter. 1673 S'too him Bayes 9 When he has done (like a wise-acres) he makes nothing of it.
¶c. With allusion to acres as = ‘lands’; in first quot. app. applied to a landed estate.
1608 Yorksh. Trag. I. iii, Is the rubbish sold, those wise~akers your lands? a1734 NORTH Exam. II. v. §128 (1740) 394 If wise by their Acres, or, in a word Wiseacres, it was expected the Guineys should come out, for the Uses of Mobbing.
2. A wise or learned person, a sage. (Usually contemptuous.)
1753 in Gentl. Mag. XXIII. 417 (spuriously archaic) Pythagoras lerned muchebecomming a myghtye wyse~acre. 1814 Sporting Mag. XLIV. 271 The concourse of wiseacres..was truly astonishing. 1842 THACKERAY Fitz-Boodle's Conf. Pref., It requires no great wiseacre to know that. 1902 Sat. Rev. 29 Nov. 677/2 The stoic paradox that the cobbler who has got wisdom is the universal wiseacre.
Hence (nonce-wds.) wiseacred (-d) a., having the character of a wiseacre (in quot. with allusion to acre: cf. 1c above), whence wiseacredness; wiseacredom, the realm of wiseacres, wiseacres collectively; wiseacreish (-r) a., like or characteristic of a wiseacre (whence wiseacreishness); wiseacreism (-rz()m), wiseacrery (-r), something characteristic of a wiseacre; pretension to or affectation of wisdom, or a remark exhibiting this.
1603 DEKKER Wonderful Year B3, Each *wise-acred Landlord.
1848 EARL NORTHBROOK in Mallet Mem. (1908) 39 The conceited phraseology and would-be *wiseacredness of its professors.
1885 A. DOBSON Don Quix. in Sign of Lyre 93 To make *Wiseacredom, both high and low, Rub purblind eyes.
1834 J. WILSON in Blackw. Mag. XXXVI. 415 He..then perpends, in a *wiseacreish pause, to consider if they are all to be found.
1895 SAINTSBURY Corrected Impr. ii. 12 Ex post facto *wiseacre-ishness.
1861 T. L. PEACOCK Gryll Grange xxiii, Whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more *wiseacre-ism about it.
1917 SAINTSBURY Hist. Fr. Novel I. 371 Interrupting his vizier and the other tale-tellers with *wiseacreries.