grins and giggles

alternative grins-and-giggles

1. informalpluralplural onlySynonym of kicks and giggles.

   He had thought that the ongoing grins and giggles were simply because he was home.

   1998, Barbara Delinsky, Coast Road, page 207

   3 more examples

   When he had dismissed those odious women with their grins and giggles, he stepped into the seat in front, and, leaning over it, held out his hand with a manner from which all the warmth and spontaneity had departed, saying, "Ah, good evening, Mrs. Brand. How is my boy to-day?"

   1913, Hersilia A. Mitchell Keays, Mrs. Brand, A Novel, page 85

   Blue pillars supported wide tin roofs over verandas laden with smiling children who met my waves with grins and giggles.

   1990, Andrew W. Mitchell, The Fragile South Pacific, An Ecological Odyssey, page 51

   While functional grins and giggles belong to the "intentional" communicative weaponry of a sovereign subject, the comic situation may on occasion produce a characteristic power-reversal whereby laughter assumes mastery over its subject, reducing him or her to a gibbering wretch rolling about on the floor and clutching his or her sides.

   1995, Rupert D. V. Glasgow, Madness, Masks, and Laughter, An Essay on Comedy, page 14

   Synonyms: kicks and giggles