How to Use smarty in a Sentence

smarty

noun
  • Don't be such a smarty.
  • She's a real smarty and does her job well.
  • Pressing the right key moved the drum on, yielding sweets for smarty-pants.
    The Economist, 22 July 2017
  • Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, said in the smarty-pants manner that economists are cherished for.
    The Economist, 11 July 2019
  • This is not to say that the pestilence lacks the Coens’ trademark comic ghastliness and smarty-pants zingers.
    Peter Rainer, The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Oct. 2017
  • Even my smarty-pants digital-native progeny can't quite get to the bottom of it.
    Kristin Van Ogtrop, Time, 28 Sep. 2017
  • Back in February, a bunch of smarty-pants academics gathered in Boston to brainstorm strategies to combat fake news.
    Callum Borchers, Washington Post, 6 May 2017
  • Is my genius toothbrush going to start communicating with my smarty-pants phone?
    Lisa Scottoline, Philly.com, 26 Jan. 2018
  • For all the smarty-pants pontificating, there’s a reason why nerd culture infrequently makes movies or TV shows in which our celluloid selves buy one-way tickets to the future.
    Mary H. K. Choi, WIRED, 1 Nov. 2011
  • Writing with spark and gravity, Gunderson adds to the deepening depiction of female smarty pants who advance the sciences.
    Lisa Kennedy, The Know, 12 Apr. 2017
  • Yet there are also points where the smarty-pants interpolations get in the way of the central questions in Rostand’s unabashedly romantic (if adolescent) view of honor and love.
    Kerry Reid, chicagotribune.com, 12 Mar. 2018
  • Now, identifying yourself as a television smarty pants — er, connoisseur — has become a bit tougher.
    Mary McNamara, latimes.com, 12 July 2019
  • As those of us with Flavia-mania know from previous books, the plucky adolescent is terrifically entertaining — the world’s foremost brainiac/chemist/sleuth/busybody/smarty-pants.
    Adam Woog, The Seattle Times, 26 Jan. 2018
  • But what about sending out messages inviting contact with intelligent aliens rather than just listening for incoming missives from faraway smarty-pants or whatever clothing may be appropriate for their anatomy?
    Steve Mirsky, Scientific American, 1 Jan. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'smarty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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