pert

Produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch and written by his frequent collaborator Samson Raphaelson, this Paramount picture, running a pert 82 minutes, positively shimmers with wit and sizzles with innuendo.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

Boonbunchachoke’s strange and funny script is constructed of multiple nesting stories, like how my own vacuum pops out a pert little dustbuster that really digs into the cracks.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2026

Smug, as we use it as a synonym for conceited or self-righteous, emerged from its earlier sense of “neat and trim,” which is exactly the ideal of a pert bump.

From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2025

She makes precise choices in pert, clever sentences.

From New York Times ● May 23, 2023

The light dusting of freckles across her pert nose.

From "Beauty Queens" by Libba Bray

Helen Mirren – sometimes interrogated by a perter, more wayward, youthful version of herself – moves through some 60 years of regality.

From The Guardian ● Mar. 10, 2013

Soon see your wish fulfilled in either child, The pert made perter, and the tame made wild.

From Magnum Bonum by Charlotte Mary Yonge

And I thought the woman looked quite a little perter; it duz down-trod folks lots of good to have somebody take their part.

From Samantha at Coney Island and a Thousand Other Islands by Marietta Holley

Oft has it been my lot to mark, A proud, conceited, talking spark, Returning from his finished tour, Grown ten times perter than before.

From The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion or, Familiar Letters to his Nephews by Henry Lunettes

Thou shouldst grow perter, or submit to a solitary quarantine, if thou wouldst not infect the whole brood.'

From Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 7 by Samuel Richardson

She were the sprackest little maid, the sharpest, pertest thing.

From The Verse-Book of a Homely Woman by Fay Inchfawn

Dearest little lover mine, Sweetest, pertest valentine; "Desht I'm two years old," he says,-- Blessings on his pretty ways,-- "'Tan't I be your valentine?"

From Mother Truth's Melodies Common Sense For Children by Mrs. E. P. Miller

Laws which Nature hath decreed, Customs sanctioned long by Time, And for centuries established, They deny with pertest tongue.

From Atta Troll by Heinrich Heine

They 've paid for a good night's sleep, 'nd it 's my duty as a director uv the Han'bul 'nd St. Jo to pertest ag'in' this disturbance.

From Second Book of Tales by Eugene Field

"Thank you!" said Madge at her prickly pertest.

From The Messenger by Elizabeth Robins