girn

present singular third person girns · participle present girning · participle past girned · past girned · alternative gurn · alternative gurne

1. dialectalTo grimace; to snarl.

   At seventy-five or eighty I will be like a child myself, frail and cantankerous, a girning, burdensome old devil.

   1999, Jessica Stirling, The Wind from the Hills, St Martin's Press

   1 more example

   The poor lass was sitting bemoaning herself - "Were it nae for thy girning face, I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal."

   1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 167

2. Northern EnglandScotlandTo whinge, moan, complain.

   And Jim was just girning all the time. I telled him to shut it.

   2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 107

3. intransitiveTo make elaborate unnatural and distorted faces as a form of amusement or in a girning competition.

plural girns · alternative gurn · alternative gurne

1. A vocalization similar to a cat's purring.

   A different vocalization, a girn, simiular to a cat's purring, was observed in infants reunited with their mothers...

   2002, Richard J. Davidson, editor, Handbook of Affective Sciences, Oxford: University Press, page 569