Word.ws English Dictionary

Besserwisser

Besserwisser noun: a know-it-all, wiseguy, wiseacre, smart aleck.

Noun

Besserwisser (plural Besserwissers)

  1. A know-it-all, wiseguy, wiseacre, smart aleck.
    • They are not Besserwissers; they just know better because they have had the experience. Capitalism has no lure for them, as socialism does for their West Central European counterparts.1973, Robert G. Collins, Kenneth McRobbie, The Eastern European Imagination in Literature, page 103
    • There is an authoritarian ring to many of the new approaches to the sociology of scientific knowledge, a Besserwisser attitude, whereby the sociologist knows best and does not need to consult with the object of his or her study.1993, Ullica Segerstråle, Bringing the Scientist Back In, in the anthology Controversial science: from content to contention (Thomas Brante, Steve Fuller, William Lynch, editors)

Forms of Besserwisser

pluralBesserwissers

Origin of Besserwisser

Borrowed from German Besserwisser.

Questions about Besserwisser

What does Besserwisser mean?
Besserwisser means a know-it-all, wiseguy, wiseacre, smart aleck.
What part of speech is Besserwisser?
Besserwisser is a noun.
What is the plural of Besserwisser?
The plural of Besserwisser is Besserwissers.

Words near Besserwisser in the dictionary

  1. Besser
  2. Besser block
  3. Besser blocks
  4. Besser brick
  5. Besser bricks
  6. Besserwisser
  7. Besserwissers
  8. besses
  9. Besses o' th' Barn
  10. Bessette
  11. Bessettes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Besserwisser (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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