It's the word of the day for April 4th.

Today's word is Wysaker, spelled as a single word, W-I-S-E-A-C-R-E.

Wise-acre is a noun.

A wiseacre is someone who says or does things that are funny but

annoying. Wise-acre is an informal and old-fashioned word, as well as a synonym of Smart Alec. Here's the

word used in a sentence from Deadline. In 1982's hit action comedy 48 hours, a young Eddie Murphy plays a Wiseacre criminal

on parole in order to help a veteran cop, played by Nick Nolte, solve a case. Given the spelling and

definition of Wiseacre, you might guess that the word was formed directly from the familiar adjective,

wise. And you might be wise to think so. A Wiseacre, after all, is someone who thinks or

pretends their wiser, more crafty or knowing than they are. But you would, alas, also be wrong.

Unlike Wisecrack and Weisenheimer, Wiseacre came to English,

not from Wise, but from the middle Dutch word, Visega, meaning soothsayer.

Wiseacre first appeared in English way back in the 1500s, while all those other Wise words

appeared centuries later.

The etymologies of Wiseacre and Wise are not completely distinct, however.

The ancestors of Wiseacre are loosely tied to the same old English route that gave us Wise.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

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