(v. i.) To set the teeth together and open the lips, or to open the mouth and withdraw the lips from the teeth, so as to show them, as in laughter, scorn, or pain.
(v. t.) To express by grinning.
(n.) The act of closing the teeth and showing them, or of withdrawing the lips and showing the teeth; a hard, forced, or sneering smile.
Example Sentences:
(1) "It is incredibly hard work," she says with a sly grin.
(2) There was nothing accidental about Saffiyah Khan’s easy nonchalance, grinning through the spitting rage of Ian Crossland at the EDL rally in Birmingham city centre at the weekend; Ieshia Evans knew there was more power in calm when she approached the police in Baton Rouge last summer.
(3) Then Obama himself swooped in with a big bear hug around Giffords's tiny frame, grinning widely before climbing to the rostrum for the speech.
(4) Thank you for your encouragement and good wishes,” Ma Jing, the director general of CCTV America, told the president, flanked by a number of grinning American staff.
(5) Who can complain of physical fear, of the nightmare of a baby eating its way out of your abdomen, of the loss of professional autonomy, staring at a stranger's idiotic grin?
(6) I have a self-satisfied grin just thinking about these expressions.
(7) People take pictures of themselves wherever they go, from cathedrals to airports to funerals , always the same face grinning at the camera.
(8) The thing that had me cracking up all night long is, I go through 20 years of everybody screaming to pass the ball,” Bryant said with a grin.
(9) Putin could have been forgiven for allowing himself a wry grin, as another court comprehensively trashed Berezovsky's reputation.
(10) The new No8 allowed a slight grin to creep over his face, seemingly struggling to contain his excitement.
(11) She reminds me of the time David was ridiculed for being photographed grinning inanely with a banana.
(12) Asked about his repeated gestures, grins and smirks towards the victims, she said it brought back memories of seeing him at Srebrenica.
(13) The final seconds of the movie are the most memorable, in which Smokey assures Big Worm he’s going to rehab, before hanging up the phone and lighting a joint with a mischievous grin to the camera.
(14) After Second World War army service, his physique, graceful carriage and radiant grin took him from lift attendant to Broadway and instant movie stardom in The Killers (1946).
(15) "We couldn't believe our eyes," grinned Shamad, recalling the sight of Tunisia's ousted despot, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, fleeing a land he had ruled for 23 years.
(16) "I have no idea," Farage barked back with something between a grin and a scowl.
(17) During mimetic actions, such as wrinkling the forehead, closing the eyes, blinking, grinning and blowing out the cheeks, EMG from 16 disk electrodes were concurrently recorded from the frontalis, orbicularis oculi, and orbicularis oris muscles on both sides.
(18) We’ll definitely show that on the day.” There was a twinkle in his eye and a slight grin on his face but Bale, make no mistake, was deadly serious.
(19) For Cohn, a teddy boy at heart, neither came close to the glamour and speed fix of the rapidly receding “golden age” he wrote about with such dash: Elvis’s “great ducktail plume and lopsided grin”, Phil Spector’s “beautiful noise”, and James Brown, “the outlaw, the Stagger Lee of his time”.
(20) There are pictures of firefighters, policemen, soldiers and members of the public, some grinning and holding up placards celebrating Bin Laden's execution.
Smirk
Definition:
(v. i.) To smile in an affected or conceited manner; to smile with affected complaisance; to simper.
(n.) A forced or affected smile; a simper.
(a.) Nice,; smart; spruce; affected; simpering.
Example Sentences:
(1) 5.14pm GMT Alan Pardew speaks ... With a smirk playing around his chops in a charm offensive on Sky Sports, he says he ‘massively regrets” sticking the hid on Hull City midfielder David Meyler and says he’ll be sitting down for matches in the future.
(2) If Kyrgios cares about his career – and sometimes he is so blase about his success, wealth and celebrity he professes to hate tennis – the hip young dude from Canberra who smirks when he should be smiling, who plainly is struggling with fame, needs to understand he is not the only clown in town.
(3) He often seems mysteriously amused, cocking an eyebrow and pulling a coy, wouldn’t-you-like-to-know smirk, but he likes to laugh out loud, too.
(4) Asked about his repeated gestures, grins and smirks towards the victims, she said it brought back memories of seeing him at Srebrenica.
(5) "Now we know our fortresses are secure," says their president, Tim Farron, a smirk of triumph in his voice, "we can collect 25 or 30 more Tory seats."
(6) They get angry at the justice minister’s smirk as he refutes “any security gap” when in fact the bombs exploded close to an interior ministry building and the headquarters of the Turkish national intelligence organisations.
(7) He has a way of holding a half-smile on his face while listening to his opponent that appears perilously close to a smirk.
(8) It can take all of a parent's ingenuity to get though a shopping trip without unwillingly picking up a tin of Barbie spaghetti shapes, a box of cereal with Lightning McQueen smirking from the front, or a bag of fruit chews with a catchy jingle.
(9) His bastard Ramsay has shown his colors (whatever color is for sadism), but Roose – who abstains from alcohol and only offers a smirk at Lady Stark here, a frown with Jaime Lannister there – is still a cypher.
(10) Bidisha : Two sexist remarks and one misogynist one At a major literary festival, before an event about military fiction, a posh famous English author smirked to me, "What's the difference between a woman and a piece of toast?
(11) I saw the smirk, too, when I went on the road with Prince and the Revolution two years later, accompanying the 1999 tour on several dates through the Midwest.
(12) They might have been even more shaken had they known that the men in casual clothes handing them these strange, badly set little pamphlets – with their funereal black borders and another death’s head leering at them inside next to the smirking wish “Good luck” – were members of New York’s police forces.
(13) With such knowledge comes a predictable illusion of power, though this is all too regularly punctured by the indignity of being kicked out of shiny receptions and told to use an entrance more befitting of our lowly status – or of having my pronunciation of “Southwark Street” incorrectly corrected by a receptionist, who gives her colleague a sidelong smirk, commiserating over my supposed ignorance.
(14) When I look at their faces, I see nothing but bravado, whether it’s Beyoncé’s stoicism, Kerry Washington’s smirk or Serena’s confidence.
(15) The camera cuts to Groves in the audience, who is smirking at Froch's words.
(16) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, the sadistic plantation owner, smirking into the zoom lens.
(17) A political debate that revolves around sniggering at women’s body parts and smirks about gay hairdressers?
(18) On another occasion, as the judge addressed Mladic about the procedure, the defendant appeared to switch off and turned to the victims again, smirking and nodding at them.
(19) On Thursday, she was pictured semi-naked on the cover of the Daily Star, a cut out of the heads of presenters Ant and Dec over each of her breasts, above a smirking caption claiming that "Naughty Nadine Dorries has boobed again!"
(20) The Catholic father in Ken Loach's Jimmy's Hall is just the most implacable enemy of nice-as-pie communists showing everyone a good time; the village imam in Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep is an ingratiating, smirking creep; and the local rev in The Homesman (as played by John Lithgow) is definitely a weasel, rather too obviously grateful not to have to transport three traumatised frontierwomen back east.