Besserwisser

plural Besserwissers

1. A know-it-all, wiseguy, wiseacre, smart aleck.

   The proverb functions as a warning to a ‘Besserwisser’, because at the end a ‘know-it-all’ will drive away even his or her best friends.

   2006, Arvi Hurskainen, Lotta Harjula, Maaria Ylänkö, Africa in the long run: festschrift in the honour of Professor Arvi Hurskainen

   3 more examples

   They are not Besserwissers; they just know better because they have had the experience. Capitalism has no lure for them, as socialism does for their West Central European counterparts.

   1973, Robert G. Collins, Kenneth McRobbie, The Eastern European Imagination in Literature, page 103

   There is an authoritarian ring to many of the new approaches to the sociology of scientific knowledge, a Besserwisser attitude, whereby the sociologist knows best and does not need to consult with the object of his or her study.

   1993, Ullica Segerstråle, Bringing the Scientist Back In, in the anthology Controversial science: from content to contention (Thomas Brante, Steve Fuller, William Lynch, editors)

   […] that Adenauer was always a Besserwisser who was convinced that other people, even when they were heads of government in other countries, did not understand their own interests as well as he did […]

   1995, Gordon A. Craig, “Konrad Adenauer and the United States”, in Reiner Pommerin, editor, The American Impact on Postwar Germany, Berghahn Books, →ISBN, page 7