Owlish

1914, Theodore Dreiser, The Titan, Chapter 26, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks/fr100299.txt "You're very right," he said, with owlish smugness, adjusting a waistcoat button that had come loose, and smoothing his cuffs.

He feebly wanted to get out of this, away from clucking nurses and Dr. Crittenham's owlish peering and the horrible scrambled eggs and cold toast.

This owl imitated Trumpkin’s voice rather well, and there were sounds of owlish laughter all round.

He stands precociously possessed of centuries of owlish wisdom.

[…] their large black eyes scanned the drawings with the owlish look of wisdom peculiar to connoisseurs.

I feel, indeed, that something very ponderous, and solemn, and authoritative, and learned, and wise, and owlish, and erudite, ought to be said.

But, indeed, the young Venetian is, at that age when all men are owlish, ignorant, and vapid, the most owlish, ignorant, and vapid man in the world.

"Any more big words coming?" he asked. "Owlish, stupid, brutal, unloving? That's you all over. Have you murdered anybody?"