Word.ws English Dictionary

getting wise

getting wise is the present participle and gerund of get wise.

Meaning of get wise

Verb

get wise (third-person singular simple present gets wise, present participle getting wise, simple past got wise, past participle (UK) got wise or (US) gotten wise)

  1. (intransitive, often, slang) To be impertinent.
    • He was getting wise, so I cracked him one.
  2. (intransitive, often, slang) To become aware of or see through a deception.
    • Last night, I thought he'd sign the deal, but this morning he'd got wised somehow.

Questions about getting wise

What is getting wise the present participle and gerund of?
Getting wise is the present participle and gerund of get wise.

Words near getting wise in the dictionary

  1. getting what one asked for
  2. getting what's coming to one
  3. getting wind
  4. getting wind in one's jaws
  5. getting wind of
  6. getting wise
  7. getting with
  8. getting with child
  9. getting with it
  10. getting with the program
  11. getting with the times

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting wise (page history and authors); get wise (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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Cite this entry: “getting wise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/getting_wise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.