What's the difference between smile and smirk?

Smile


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To express amusement, pleasure, moderate joy, or love and kindness, by the features of the face; to laugh silently.
  • (v. i.) To express slight contempt by a look implying sarcasm or pity; to sneer.
  • (v. i.) To look gay and joyous; to have an appearance suited to excite joy; as, smiling spring; smiling plenty.
  • (v. i.) To be propitious or favorable; to favor; to countenance; -- often with on; as, to smile on one's labors.
  • (v. t.) To express by a smile; as, to smile consent; to smile a welcome to visitors.
  • (v. t.) To affect in a certain way with a smile.
  • (v. i.) The act of smiling; a peculiar change or brightening of the face, which expresses pleasure, moderate joy, mirth, approbation, or kindness; -- opposed to frown.
  • (v. i.) A somewhat similar expression of countenance, indicative of satisfaction combined with malevolent feelings, as contempt, scorn, etc; as, a scornful smile.
  • (v. i.) Favor; countenance; propitiousness; as, the smiles of Providence.
  • (v. i.) Gay or joyous appearance; as, the smiles of spring.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But mention the words "eurozone crisis" to other Finns, and you could be rewarded with little more than a confused, albeit friendly, smile.
  • (2) But after 26.2 miles of pain it may be harder to keep that smile on his face.
  • (3) Speed's mother said she had watched again some television footage of her son before his death and realised his smile didn't seem genuine as "it didn't extend to his eyes".
  • (4) But there she sits with a strained smile as he serenades her before an audience of millions.
  • (5) I remind him that he had been unhappy with the penalty awarded to Barcelona in the Champions League game at Wembley last season, and he smiles.
  • (6) He was a fixture at Trump rallies, where he met chants of “Lock her up” against Hillary Clinton with a smile.
  • (7) I didn’t see him tonight,” smiled the alderman.
  • (8) Gough, as the degenerate black sheep of an English family trying to blackmail an American adulterer, would curl a long lip into a sneering smile, which became a characteristic of this fine actor's style.
  • (9) That’s before you even begin to consider the sort of outfits, polite eating and staged photos that guarantee I end up with a bleeding foot, skirt tucked into my knickers, mint in my teeth and a fixed smile last seen on a taxidermied pike.
  • (10) "Anne Hathaway at least tried to sing and dance and preen along to the goings on, but Franco seemed distant, uninterested and content to keep his Cheshire-cat-meets-smug smile on display throughout."
  • (11) But that doesn't mean that I can't make jokes about it, or help noticing the smiles on women's faces whenever this case is mentioned.
  • (12) "He would say he was a peaceful man, whose smile gives hope."
  • (13) When he smiles, he looks as cute and gummy as a newborn.
  • (14) I know I am loved by some clubs, especially one, and in Spain the situation is a bit different because some people hate me," Mourinho continued, adding with a smile: "And many of you are in this room."
  • (15) Expressions that included muscular activity around the eyes in addition to the smiling lips occurred more often when people were actually enjoying themselves as compared with when enjoyment was feigned to conceal negative emotions.
  • (16) Blue jean baby, LA lady, seamstress for the band Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man Ballerina, you must have seen her, dancing in the sand And now she’s in me, always with me, tiny dancer in my hand For a moment it seemed possible that the person about to get out of the plane was a man of subtle taste and kindness, a man who could appreciate such beauty, who was secure enough in himself to set his arrival in Sacramento to the soundtrack of a 45-year-old song by a gay troubadour.
  • (17) Singh said a smiling Mandela had asked "Is that me?"
  • (18) He smiled enigmatically when the questions turned to Greece and the possibility of a country leaving the euro, before dismissing such talk as "not being the working assumption of mine or any government".
  • (19) He was alive, he was walking unaided, and he was smiling.
  • (20) While there are smiles in the Ennis-Hill household, the organisers of the Commonwealth Games will be ruing the loss of a major star – especially as Britain's 5,000m and 10,000m Olympic gold medallist Mo Farah has admitted that the games are "not on my list" for 2014, and the 100m world record holder Usain Bolt is yet to commit.

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.