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

Molly Irelan’s costumes, with period cuts, vivid fabrics and sparkling touches, further the opera’s mood of pert pastiche.

From New York Times ● Feb. 20, 2023

The girl in front of him had freckled, light brown skin; inquisitive brown eyes; and a pert, round nose.

From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova

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 Yonge, Charlotte Mary

Like all their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much "perter" then other animal infants.

From A Mountain Boyhood by Comstock, Enos B. (Enos Benjamin)

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 Richardson, Samuel

God knows there wouldn't 'a' been a perter monkey in the bunch, if so it hadn't come I was scart, or thinkin' of somethin' else, when a hot-box arrived.

From Mr. Scraggs by Phillips, Henry Wallace

This Heuresis, this Invention, is the proudest jackanapes, the pertest, self-conceited boy that ever breathed.

From A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 9 by Various

Then I laughed loudly—it was only a hare, the prettiest and pertest thing imaginable.

From Scottish Ghost Stories by O'Donnell, Elliott

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

From Atta Troll by Heine, Heinrich

Miss Sibson rejoined, in a tone which had been known to quell the pertest of seventeen-year-old rebels.

From Chippinge Borough by Weyman, Stanley J.

Gayest, pertest, most reckless of all, Lady Betty was in her glory.

From Sophia A Romance by Weyman, Stanley John