(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.
Sneer
Definition:
(v. i.) To show contempt by turning up the nose, or by a particular facial expression.
(v. i.) To inssinuate contempt by a covert expression; to speak derisively.
(v. i.) To show mirth awkwardly.
(v. t.) To utter with a grimace or contemptuous expression; to utter with a sneer; to say sneeringly; as, to sneer fulsome lies at a person.
(v. t.) To treat with sneers; to affect or move by sneers.
(n.) The act of sneering.
(n.) A smile, grin, or contortion of the face, indicative of contempt; an indirect expression or insinuation of contempt.
Example Sentences:
(1) He made his political base in this western province, which has long felt sneered at: Harper has spent his political career redressing the balance.
(2) 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.
(3) Comment is perfectly legitimate, but the sneering, supercilious, specious and dismissive contributions masquerading as ‘commentary’ belittle the claims of a ‘quality’ paper.” Before attempting to assess the validity of the reader’s analysis – broadly shared by some other readers – I think his email reflects one or two other interesting aspects of the demographics of the Guardian’s readership and the left.
(4) Webb agreed, calling Miliband "irresponsible" for "stirring up cheap headlines", sneering: "Why doesn't the government set a price cap on a tin of beans?"
(5) I think it's a good thing that comedians want to exploit (and relieve) our anxieties about what's sayable – but only if we as audiences become bolder in opposing comedy that bullies, comedy that sneers at the vulnerable and the under-represented, comedy that feels, in Herring's words, "like being at school and going, 'Ha ha, you're a spastic.'"
(6) Over the years the Oscars have been variously coveted and sneered at, have increasingly brought box-office value and personal prestige, become a media obsession, a gauge of industrial morale and a way of taking the national pulse.
(7) It has sneered at the 1906 reforms of Lloyd George , who recognised that 19th-century philanthropy (which was always pretty judgmental and selective) was no longer adequate for a modern industrial country.
(8) Merkel grimly submitted to an executive fashion makeover after the media sneered at her frumpy look; now she clearly relishes shining out in jewel-toned jackets from a forest of dark suits at G20 meetings.
(9) At which point – obviously – you reach the stubborn limits of the debate: from even the most supposedly imaginative Labour people as much as any Tories, such heresies would presumably be greeted with sneering derision.
(10) This is so corny, what I'm saying, but I feel obliged to drone on about it, because before we reach the tipping point, it's time to stop sneering at fat people, being disapproving and bossing them about: walk to work, eat your greens, control yourselves.
(11) Henry Barnes The clergy may not be entirely trustworthy This may not be big news to cinemagoers – sneering at religious types goes all the way back to DW Griffith's Intolerance – but Cannes boasts an impressively ecumenical approach.
(12) Chindamo's trial, the following year, heard how the teenager, who came to Britain from Italy at the age of five, sneered as he slapped, punched and then stabbed the headteacher.
(13) Oh, but now this is highfalutin identity politics to be sneered at along with your safe spaces and trigger warnings.
(14) Hours after Tuesday’s bomb attack on a tourist area of Istanbul , Erdoğan delivered a sneering criticism of Chomsky and “so-called intellectuals” who had signed a letter calling on Turkey to end the “deliberate massacre” of Kurdish people in the south east of the country, He invited Chomsky to visit the area in a defiant televised speech to a conference of Turkish ambassadors in Ankara.
(15) "I always hated the expression anyway, mostly because I encountered it in stupid or sneering contexts."
(16) Naturally, Michael Gove , former Times columnist, responded to the thousands of economists who warned he was taking an extraordinary risk with the sneer that will follow him to his grave: “People in this country have had enough of experts.” He’s been saying the same for years.
(17) It is easy to sneer at the journalistic concept of the Angry Young Man (a phrase, incidentally, coined by a dismissive Royal Court press officer).
(18) But Winterbottom, a competent pre-war centre-half for Manchester United, unfairly sneered at by some England international veterans as one who had never played, was, in essence, a bureaucrat rather than a technician, who would admit his other job – yes, he had two!
(19) The decision to have clip-on ties, favoured for police officers, sneered at by those who believe "children should learn to do ties up from an early age", is already paying off, with not a single tie out of place.
(20) If you ever feel tempted to say "status quo" or "cul de sac", for instance, Orwell will sneer at you for "pretentious diction".