smirk

plural smirks · alternative smerk · alternative smirke

1. An uneven, often crooked smile that is insolent, self-satisfied, conceited or scornful.
2. A forced or affected smile.

   The bride, all smirk and blush, had just entered.

   1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC

   1 more example

   We sat at a long table with a huge salmon on a platter in the center, prepared Szechuan style. Dad sat at one end of the table, and regaled all present with his stories. In the middle of one convoluted yarn, he rose and went around to the salmon in the center of the table. Using his fingers, he dug an eyeball out of the fish, popped it in his mouth and swallowed it whole as we looked on, aghast. “A real delicacy,” he said, with a boyish smirk.

   2003, Brian Herbert, “Xanadu”, in Dreamer of Dune, New York: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 259

   Synonyms: simper, shit-eating grin

present singular third person smirks · participle present smirking · participle past smirked · past smirked · alternative smerk · alternative smirke

1. To smile in a way that is affected, smug, insolent or contemptuous.

   Synonyms: simper

comparative more smirk · superlative most smirk · alternative smerk · alternative smirke

1. obsoletesmart; spruce; affected; simpering

   So smirk, so smooth, his pricked Ears.

   1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “Februarie. Aegloga Se[c]unda.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Iohn Wolfe for Iohn Harrison the yonger, […], →OCLC