smarty-pants
Americannoun
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He's just a smarty-pants, showing off for some girls.
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a smart person.
My kid is a super smarty-pants who continues to get 4s on her state exams.
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(used as a mildly abusive term of address or to refer to someone with contempt).
Who invited that smarty-pants--everyone hates her!
noun
Etymology
Origin of smarty-pants
First recorded in 1915–20
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
People always enjoy a critical savaging, and there’s satisfaction in seeing a smarty-pants taken down a peg.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 16, 2019
Green’s characters are sweet, hyperverbal smarty-pants; they memorize poetry and say things like “I just want to do something that matters. Or be something that matters. I just want to matter.”
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 30, 2018
The book is “half-tell-all memoir, half-self-help manual,” all delivered in McHale’s signature, smarty-pants style.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 21, 2016
That wonky, literary, playful, quirky, smarty-pants Slate was still evident in the weeks, months, and years after the attack.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2016
When he saw me laughing at him, he was like, “Okay, smarty-pants, if you can do it better then show me.”
From "Courage to Soar" by Simone Biles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
