smarty-pants

American  

[smahr-tee-pants] / ˈsmɑr tiˌpænts /

noun

(used with a singular verb)

1. smart aleck.

   He's just a smarty-pants, showing off for some girls.

2. a smart person.

   My kid is a super smarty-pants who continues to get 4s on her state exams.

3. (used as a mildly abusive term of address or to refer to someone with contempt).

   Who invited that smarty-pants--everyone hates her!

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smarty-pants British  

/ ˈsmɑːtɪˌbuːts, ˈsmɑːtɪˌpænts /

noun

1. informal (functioning as singular) a would-be clever person

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Etymology

Origin of smarty-pants

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Rolling off the bed in a silicon sleep cocoon, Grace gradually evolves from a wriggling larval stage into a fully upright, walking and talking smarty-pants.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 18, 2026

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

But at the root of Jamison’s own grandiosity is not smarty-pants pretension; it’s a craving for emotional intensity that takes the form of an infatuation with pain.

From Slate • Apr. 3, 2018

Phony rules, which proliferate like urban legends and are just as hard to eradicate, are responsible for vast amounts of ham-fisted copyediting and smarty-pants one-upmanship.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker