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

It’s a mild thing, a pert, often creamy-colored whorl of fungus that goes well with thyme sautéed in butter.

From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 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

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

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)

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

From Magnum Bonum by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

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 Lunettes, Henry

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 Miller, Mrs. E. P.

His hair was long and yellow and hung clustering about his shoulders, for all the world like a schoolgirl's; and he bore himself with as mincing a gait as the pertest of them.

From Robin Hood by McSpadden, J. Walker (Joseph Walker)

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.

The lively strain of a white-eyed vireo, pertest of songsters, comes to me from somewhere on my right, and the soft chipping of myrtle warblers is all but incessant.

From A Florida Sketch-Book by Torrey, Bradford

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 Field, Eugene