Chapter Windmill Street to Wishart of W by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Wise Men of Gotham (The). (See Gotham. )

Wiseacre A corruption of the German weissager (a soothsayer or prophet). This, like the Greek sophism, has quite lost its original meaning, and is applied to dunces, wise only “in their own conceit.”
   There is a story told that Ben Jonson, at the Devil's Tavern, in Fleet Street, said to a country gentleman who boasted of his landed estates, “What care we for your dirt and clods? Where you have an acre of land, I have ten acres of wit.” The landed gentleman retorted by calling Ben “Good Mr. Wiseacre.” The story may pass for what it is worth.

Wisest Man of Greece So the Delphic oracle pronounced Socrates to be, and Socrates modestly made answer, “ 'Tis because I alone of all the Greeks know that I know nothing.”

Wish-wash A reduplication of wash. Any thin liquor for drinking.

Wishy-washy A reduplication of washy. Very thin, weak, and poor; wanting in substance or body.

Wishart (George). One of the early reformers of Scotland, condemned to the stake by Cardinal Beaton. While the fire was blazing about him he said: “He who from yon high place beholdeth me with such pride shall be brought low, even to the ground, before the trees which supplied these faggots have shed their leaves.” It was March when Wishart uttered these words, and the cardinal died in June. (See Summons. )