smile-smirk

verb

Etymology

Compound of smile + smirk. Coined by Irish novelist and poet James Joyce in his 1922 novel Ulysses (see quotation below).

Definitions

  1. To smile while smirking.

    • She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.
    • He clanged open the register, still smile-smirking—Holy moly, it was really happening, what an adventure, wait'll he told the guys!
  2. An instance of smile-smirking

    An instance of smile-smirking; a combined smile and smirk.

    • […] and he'd quickly pull out and jettison a storm, turbospewing her back and hair and sheets and face and ears and sly, conniving little smile-smirk.
    • Not because it made his scar disappear, but because it eased it for a few moments. His cocky smile-smirk was a close second favorite.
    • He wiped his own face as an indicator, that same smile-smirk painted on his stupid face.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for smile-smirk. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA