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Smirk   Listen
noun
Smirk  n.  A forced or affected smile; a simper. "The bride, all smirk and blush, had just entered."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Smirk" Quotes from Famous Books



... blameless pride. He wrought no wrong toward any; satisfied With love and labour, whence our souls are fed With largesse yet of living wine and bread. Come, let us praise him: here is nought to hide. Make bare the poor dead secrets of his heart, Strip the stark-naked soul, that all may peer, Spy, smirk, sniff, snap, snort, snivel, snarl, and sneer: Let none so sad, let none so sacred part Lie still for pity, rest unstirred for shame, But all be scanned of ...
— A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... a half embarrassed smirk. Patricia thought of a small boy who had been caught in a mischief but was still somewhat proud of himself. He said, "Well, I gotta admit that there's been a few things. Come on over to my place and I'll show you." He looked at Braun. "Hey, Doc, about how ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)

... asked in one breath who had left it. When the clamor slackened, she replied, "Why, young Cuffy from the baker's, and all he said was, 'David Dubbs,—to be sent—card inside,' and then kissing his hand, and crying 'Love to her,' meaning I don't know who," with a smirk at Polly, "he jumped aboard his wagon and flew ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various

... and the forlorn souls all about me, for a time at least, laid down their burdens and found rest and comfort in their Father's house. It did me more good than the preaching of all the bishops in London, or the finest pageant at St. Paul's; and I am truly glad I went, though the saucy conductor did smirk at ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott

... Frank Digby; "you are quite embarrassing to her ladyship. Will the lady Louisa take my arm? Allow me, madam, to interpose my powerful authority." And he offered his arm to Louis with a smirk and low bow, which set all the spectators off laughing; for Frank was one of those privileged persons, who, having attained a celebrity for being very funny, can excite a laugh ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... tall person, wearing a silk travelling-cap. He had a face of stupid benignity and a self-satisfied smirk; and he was formally trying to put at his ease, and hopelessly confusing the loutish youth before him. "You say you saw the whole accident, and you're probably the only passenger that did see it. You'll be the most important witness at the trial," he added, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... the simple smirk or bow that makes the gentleman, But constant care to please the fair in every way he can; And this good father never miss'd whene'er my shrine he pass'd, To kneel or bow, extremely low, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... Josiah Barker was waiting for them—an oily smirk on a face smooth save where a thin fringe of white whiskers dangled from his jaw-bone, ear to ear; fat, damp hands rubbing in anticipation of the large fee that was to repay him for celebrating the marriage and for keeping quiet about it afterward. At the ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips

... for homely & unpretending English. Every time I use "go back" you get out your polisher & slick it up to "return." "Return" is suited only to the drawing-room—it is ducal, & says itself with a simper & a smirk. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... dandies, dressed smartly in the French fashion, with strong Jewish physiognomies. There was one, a solemn lean fellow in black, with his collars extremely turned over, and holding before him a long ivory-tipped ebony cane, who tripped along the little place with a solemn smirk, which gave one an indescribable feeling of the truth of "Gil Blas," and of those delightful bachelors and licentiates who have appeared to us ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Except for the smirk on her face, all I can learn of her now is that she was one of [Pg viii] a small family who lived in the country, invented their own games, dodged the governess and let the rest of the world go hang. She read everything that came her way, including, ...
— The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan • Daisy Ashford

... Said JANE, with a smirk, and a blush on her face, "I'll promise to wed the boy Who takes me to-morrow to Epsom Race!" (Which I would have ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert

... could be. The right side of his face was in a condition of semi-paralysis due to the muscular exactions required; he had a sickening fear that the scowl that marked his brow was destined to form a perpetual alliance with the smirk at the corner of his nose, forever destroying the symmetry of his face. If one who has not the proper facial construction will but attempt the feat of holding a monocle in place for unbroken hours, he may come ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon

... man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily, pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little girl," I thought. But the man was in no way ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... are ungrateful; it is only the rarest and noblest natures who can feel thankful for help without any injury to vanity. The majority of men love their inferiors, those whom they help; to give flatters self-esteem; but they hate their superiors, and lend to the word "patron" an intolerable smirk of condescension. Shakespeare should ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... high, and living soft, Grew plump and able-bodied; Until the grave churchwarden doff'd, The parson smirk'd and nodded. ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... while we stood in a respectful semi-circle before her, modestly conscious of our worth, our toes turned out, and each man's features wreathed with that politely unnatural smirk which masculine features assume when confronted by feminine beauty. "Gentlemen, on the eve of your proposed departure for Baffin Land in quest of living specimens of the five-spotted Philohela quinquemaculata, I have been instructed by Professor Bottomly to announce ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... some close reckoning, Dent, but the cleverest part of the business was letting old Parrish think he'd got away from me. I knew he'd telephone Lucille. You know, I always had the brains of the outfit, Dent," he continued, with a smirk of self-satisfaction. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... he would have seen that all faces were at present sober, and most of them serious—it was the regular and respectable thing for those excellent farm-labourers to do, as much as for elegant ladies and gentlemen to smirk and bow over their wine-glasses. Bartle Massey, whose ears were rather sensitive, had gone out to see what sort of evening it was at an early stage in the ceremony, and had not finished his contemplation until a silence of five minutes declared that "Drink, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... Charles, tauntingly, with a wink at his companions; "a pretty piece of heraldry, a bold escutcheon, a dainty poniard—pale as a lily, and how he did sigh and drop his lids and smirk and smirk and dance your latest galliard to surpass De Grammont. Ask brother James how ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... the barber had a large face, simple, amiable with a smirk of conceit as to the lower part; his forehead was very large and round, as was his head, and his blue eyes were very placid, even beautiful. The ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Mrs. Ocklebourne, with a smirk at her hostess, who was supremely uncomfortable, "and I do so want to know your dear wife, bishop. So does Major Joicy. He's tremendously interested in the Something Society, which looks after the poor black things out in Nigeria—that ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley

... conviction of what best suits myself. I'm one of those men who are born to be free, who've got to fill their lungs with air, who must get out into the wilds if they're to live—God! I'd sooner be snowed up on a battlefield than smirk at a damned afternoon tea-party any day in the week! If I want a woman, I like to take her by her hair and swing her up behind me on the saddle and ride ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... that he meant to attack her. She could see that determination in his eyes and in his manner. He was still grinning, but now the grin had become set, satyric, hideous. It was a mere smirk. No mirth was behind it—nothing but passion, ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... pleasure.] Rejoicing. — N. rejoicing, exultation, triumph, jubilation, heyday, flush, revelling; merrymaking &c. (amusement) 840; jubilee &c. (celebration) 883; paean, Te Deum &c. (thanksgiving) 990[Lat]; congratulation &c. 896. smile, simper, smirk, grin; broad grin, sardonic grin. laughter (amusement) 840. risibility; derision &c. 856. Momus; Democritus the Abderite[obs3]; rollicker[obs3]. V. rejoice, thank one's stars, bless one's stars; congratulate oneself, hug oneself; rub one's hands, clap one's hands; smack the lips, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... said, "it is easily done, and it is as much to your brother as to myself. It is a letter which, methinks, Fulk would not have read out of the family, of which I may call myself one," and he gave a sort of smirk at Agnes;—"but he writes so crabbedly, that I, for one, cannot read two lines,—and I would not willingly give it to a clerk, who might be less secret. So methought, as 'twas the Baron's affair, I would even bring it here, and profit ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Rogers' eyes, too—a mere glimmer of it. Yet it was there; and when Deveny set his glass down and looked straight at Rogers, it was that fear which brought the fawning, insincere smirk to ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... develop her into a real woman. But I haven't, and it wouldn't be worth while when there are so many real women, ready made, out where I come from. This girl would be exactly the wife for you, though. Just as she is, she'd help you mince about from parlor to parlor, and smirk and jabber and waste time. She's been educating for the job ever since she was born." He laid his hand in gracious, kindly fashion on his friend's shoulder. "Think it over. And if you want my help it's yours. I can show her what ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... I was beside Thurid, and ere the devilish smirk had faded from his handsome face I had caught him full upon the mouth with my clenched fist; and as the good, old American blow landed, the black dator shot back a dozen feet, to crumple in a heap at the foot of Kulan Tith's throne, spitting blood and teeth from ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... two life-size portraits on panels built into the masonry. As all visitors to the mansion are aware, these paintings represent women of middle age, of a date some two hundred years ago, whose lineaments once seen can never be forgotten. The long pointed features, narrow eye, and smirk of the one, so suggestive of merciless treachery; the bill-hook nose, large teeth, and bold eye of the other suggesting arrogance to the point of ferocity, haunt the beholder afterwards ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... because of this face—plump, pinkly tinted cheeks, lustrous, curling hair of some repellent composition, eyes with a hard glitter, each lash distinct in blue-black lines, and a small, tip-curled black mustache that lent the whole an offensive smirk. Garbed now in a raincoat, he, too, was posed before the emporium front, labelled "Rainproof or You Get Back Your Money." So frankly evil was his mien that Merton Gill, pausing to regard him, suffered a brief relapse ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... his feet with a truculent air. As he did so, somebody touched him upon the shoulder, and he turned to see his client leaning out of the dock. With an apologetic smirk at his lordship, the lawyer left ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... thought would envy you giggle and smirk and nudge each other and make suggestions that are supposed to be mirth-compelling. And then and there you decide to do differently next summer. A sunburned nose may be a treasurable possession away from town, but back among the hosts of the city it is a different matter. More ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... excuse, Madam," he answered, smiling and unabashed. "Have I your Majesty's leave to present it?" he continued, with a smirk and a ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... my comrades pass away To bow and smirk and gloze, Come others, for as short a stay; And ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)

... a telephone on the desk beside him. The newcomer shook his head, twisting his mouth into a smirk. ...
— Day of the Moron • Henry Beam Piper

... at all impressed by it. She switched her brown skirt with more than her usual air of jaunty alertness around the chairs and tables, looked in the little glass behind the screen at which the pair adjusted their caps and aprons with a smirk of self-satisfaction, and always wore a bunch of Princess violets in the bosom of her dress. Soon, the string of amber beads at her throat was discarded in favour of a gold chain and pearl and turquoise pendant, ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... man goes skipping and bounding along a street in the capital. His movements are gay and alert; there is a sparkle in his eyes, a smirk on his lips, a pleasing flush on his beaming face.... He ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... a pretty shade of plum. "Weener, youre a thief, a petty, cadging, sly, larcenous, pilfering, bloody thief. You take the Daily Intelligencer's honest dollars without a qualm, aye, with a smirk on your imbecile face, proposing with the cool impudence of the born embezzler to return no value for them. Weener, you forget yourself. The Intelligencer picked you out of a gutter, a nauseous, dungspattered ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... more, Gavinia was looking on smiling and saying, "You bonny litlin, you're windy to have him dandling you; and no wonder, for he's a father to be proud o'." Corp was accepting it all with a complacent smirk. Oh, agreeable change since last we were in this house! oh, happy picture of domestic bliss! oh—but no, these are not the words; what we meant to say was, "Gavinia, you limmer, so you have got the better of that man of yours ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie

... dragoon, had some rational points in his character; so, seeing that he lent ear to me with a smirk on his rough red face, I went on: "Take my advice as a friend and make the best of your way home, killing-coat and all; for the most perfect will sometimes fall into an innocent mistake, and, at any rate, it cannot be helped now. But if ye show any symptom of obstrapulosity, I'll find myself ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... no fool like an old fool, as the saying is! Just watch her smirk! I'm mighty glad Ellen Robinson's there to relieve me of the responsibility. She'll be over after a while, and then we'll know who he is. There goes Julia in. She watched him out o' sight! Well, I wonder what her mother ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill

... man, had not his mistress's keen intuition of the deportment necessitated by the case, or was incapable of putting the screw upon weak excited nature, for he continued to smirk, and was remarking how glad he was, he was sure, and something he had dared to think and almost to fear, when the old gentleman called to him, as if he were at the other end of the room, 'Will you order Thursday, or not, sir?' Whereat Jonathan flew, and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... know your daughter when we get her fixed up for Vassar," she told Andrew, with a smirk which covered her face with a network of wrinkles under her blond ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... looking at me with his small, dark eyes. He had an expression on his face that looked as if it were trying to sneer and leer at the same time but couldn't get much beyond the smirk stage. ...
— A Spaceship Named McGuire • Gordon Randall Garrett

... portraiture, all at full length, all in their robes of office, and all too evidently by one and the same hand. To me, however, they were all majestic and beautiful. I believed in themselves, their wigs, their armour, their ermine, their high-heeled shoes and their stereotyped smirk, from the ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards

... artists who were, after all, contemporaries either of Sappho or Pindar. And it is more probable that the sculptors of Aegina were still embarrassed about the modelling of lips and cheeks than that, having Homer by heart, they imagined his heroes to die silently and with a smirk. ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee

... though an artificer, after contriving {200} A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept off ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... then turned to his companion at the table. "This is my skipper," he said. "Name's Steve. You gotta job to do, Steve'll do it. Anything, anywhere, any time," he paused, and then added with a smirk, ...
— On the Trail of the Space Pirates • Carey Rockwell

... admiral, set off to visit his aunt, accompanied by his benedict marine. On his arrival, he found that everything appeared to be in great confusion; indeed an event was occurring which had astonished the whole household; the butler made a profound bow to the captain; the footmen forgot their usual smirk when he alighted. Captain Delmar was ushered in solemn silence into the drawing-room, and his aunt, who had notice of his arrival received him with a stiff, prim air of unwonted frigidity, with her arms crossed before her on her ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat

... turn to the Boxes where TRIP in his lace Is aping his master, and keeping his place. Do but note how the Puppy flings back with a yawn, Like a Duke at the least, or a Bishop in lawn! Then sniffs at his bouquet, whips round with a smirk, And ogles the ladies at large—like a Turk. But the music comes in, and the blanks are all filling, And TRIP must trip up to the seats at a shilling; And spite of the mourning that most of us wear ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson

... stupid-looking young fellow with a sly, twisted smirk which gives him the appearance of perpetually winking his eye, detaches himself from a group on the right. All join in with urging exclamations: "Go on, Peters! Go to it! Pedal up, Pete! Give us a rag! ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill

... in the honest working world, With posture and hint and smirk, These sons of the devil are standing by While Man does ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... of yourself, Poddy, even back in the days when we both worked on the old Tribune," commented Ferguson with a smirk of amusement. "But this proposition of yours is the deckle-edged limit and no mistake. If you were anybody else I'd have a lot of ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... see the bow hangin' down his back, "Our old forefathers went through worse trials than this when they eat their cartridge boxes and friz themselves at Valley Forge," and he fingered some of them bows and ornaments on his breast agin with a vain, conceited smirk of satisfaction. I wuz at my wits' end; I glanced at the door; there wuz no lock on it; what should I do? Religion and common sense wouldn't move him, and as for my sharpest weepon—good vittles—here I wuz hampered, ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley

... reckless liberality. For when Celia made a mild inquiry concerning a sweetbread which she had no recollection of having ordered Jillings explained, with what I fear I must describe as a self-conscious smirk, that it was "a little Easter orfering from the butcher, Madam." I am bound to say that even Celia was less scrupulous about hurting the butcher's feelings—no doubt from an impression that his occupation must have cured him ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol 150, February 9, 1916 • Various

... didn't you?" The man paused for breath, and Connie scrutinized his face, but could not remember to have seen him before. He shifted his glance to the other, who had returned to the edge of the bunk, and was regarding him with a sneering smirk. ...
— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... was all different. There was a note of unreality nowadays in Mrs. Donnelly's professions of wonder at her bearing up under her multiplied maladies; there was almost a leer of mockery in the sympathetic smirk with which the Misses Mangan listened to her symptoms. Even the doctors, though they kept their faces turned toward her, obviously did not pay much attention; the people in the street seemed no longer to look at her and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... first time that hatred of inequalities which, repulsive though it is in theory, is yet the true nerver of the strong right arm of progress. It is as characteristic of the homely, human countenance of Democracy as the supercilious smirk is of the homely, inhuman countenance of caste. Arthur did not want to get up where Ross was seated in such elegant state; he wanted to tear Ross, all the Rosses down. "The damn fool!" he fumed. "He goes lounging ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... such a hot morning." Joe said a deal more of the same make; and all the time he was saying it, the old man laid himself back in his great chair, and kept twiddling his thumbs, and glancing up at Joe with a half-smirk on his face, as if he had got something very ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... going back toward the church. The jealous, infuriated woman continued, in a half-audible voice, to hurl her insulting tirade over those broad, exuberant shoulders in front of her—a splendid pedestal for a beautiful head with luxuriant hair. Dolores turned around with a smirk of biting ridicule on her face. Beg pardon! Had all that been for her? When would that dirty scullion stop annoying a lady? Couldn't a person look at a parade without being insulted? And a glitter of gold sparkled with a wicked ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. "You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... a little less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, in ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... for. And that Dockwrath should be took in with 'em—he that's so sharp at everything,—that's what surprises me. But laws, John, it isn't the sharp ones that gets the best off. You was never sharp, but you're as smirk and smooth as though you came out of a band-box. I am glad to see you, John, so I am." And she put her apron up to her eyes ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... Tim, with a self-satisfied smirk, as he seated himself on the branch and surveyed the four ropes complacently, "it'll puzzle the biggest b'ar in all the Rocky ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne

... should have taken such a vivid interest in Reginald Henson and his doings. For some years past it had been Littimer's whim to hold up Henson before everybody as his successor, so far as the castle went. He liked to see Henson's modest smirk and beautiful self-abasement, for in sooth his lordship had a pretty contempt for the man who hoped to succeed him. But the will made some time ago by Littimer would have come as a painful shock ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White

... evolved them, London has had her day, New York knows them, and Chicago—I trust I will not be contradicted when I say that Chicago understands her business! And so we find these folks who cultivate a pellucid passivity, a phthisicky whisper, a supercilious smirk, and who win our smothered admiration and give us gooseflesh by imparting a taupe tinge of mystery to all their acts and words, thus proving to the assembled guests that they are the Quality and Wisdom will die ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... to stand forth. Clean and trig and carefully dressed, Captain Jonathan Wellsby confronted these savage, unwashed pirates and calmly demanded to know their errand. It was plain to read that Blackbeard thought himself an imposing figure. With a smirk and a grimace he bowed clumsily to a woman on deck who had refused to desert her husband. He growled like a bear at Captain Wellsby and prodded the poor man with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine

... out upon his fellows from the point of view of a philanthropist? Do you suppose that the man, into whose soul the irons of bitterness have gnawed and eaten their way, is likely to come out with a smirk and look around him for the opportunity of doing good? Rubbish! My aim is to encourage suffering wherever I see it, to create it where I can, to make sinners ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Reuben and Burke And Nathan and Jotham and Solomon, lurk Around the corner to see him work,— Sitting cross-legged, like a Turk, Drawing the wax-end through with a jerk, And boring the holes with a comical quirk Of his wise old head, and a knowing smirk. But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; With wood from the pile and straw from the stacks He plugged the knot-holes and calked the cracks; And a bucket of water, which one would think He had brought up into the loft to drink When ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... with a hideous smirk. He had directed the Emperor's attention to the mosaic pavement in the steward's room, and had shamelessly accused Keraunus of having offered to sell him a work that belonged to the palace, contrasting his conduct with his own rectitude. Now the calumniated man was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... your cousin Martin!" said the man, advancing upon them with a smirk that was like ...
— Orphans of the Storm • Henry MacMahon

... were the amateur executioners observing their victim that every eye went back to the clock as well. Even Carl was guilty of that imitation. Consequently he saw the editor, standing at the back, make notes on his copy-paper and smirk like an ill-bred hound stealing a bone. And the Greek professor stared at Frazer's gauche movements with a grim smugness that indicated, "Quite the sort of thing I expected." The Greek's elbows were on the arm of the seat, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... remarkable to me to see how easily and simply she carried herself in a dress and a company entirely strange to her. She had no mauvaise honte, for she made no pretence; she was not self-conscious, for she deceived nobody; she did not smirk nor make herself in any way ridiculous. She was still herself, put in a position where—as she had the wit to see—staidness was the natural thing; therefore staid she was. I would have defied any fine gentleman ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett

... who was leaning carelessly by the window, turned to me with a sort of smirk—'This is her way, Sir,' he said; 'her madness is of a very singular description: we have not, as yet, been able to discover how far it extends; sometimes she seems conscious of the past, sometimes utterly oblivious of every thing: for days she is perfectly silent, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... had been tried and found wanting, he flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration. They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion of Archie's first absence that this interest took root. It was vastly deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same afternoon there ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Gaviller expects to get the fur anyway," said Strange with a seeming deprecatory air—but the suspicion of a smirk ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... received their place and look with an ineffable and satisfied smirk on the despair of the sinners, all turning at last to gaze upon the battalion of "reprobate infants," described in the same ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell

... this paragraph with a shrug, and that one with a smirk. I was in no manner surprised at the announcement that Miss High-Culture was going to wed the Duke of Impecune; I had always been certain this girl would do some such fool thing. That Mrs. Hyphen-Bonds was giving a farewell dinner at the ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... drawing her away from the door and down the stairs. "He must be trying to teach himself to dance. I suppose he wants to learn how, so he'll be able to dance at the party," she added, with smirk. Then Mother Stina began to shake with laughter. "He came near frightening the life out of me," she confessed. "Thank God he can be young for once!" When she had got over her fit of laughing, she said: "You're not to say a word ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... was a man of about thirty; tall, slender, lithe, swarthy, with thin, expressive lips that were twisted upward at one corner in an insincere smirk. This taller man came close to the wagon and paused in an attitude ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer

... weddingcake standing up miles off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very hard at my chest when ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... energy that amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But, now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other's face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse

... gotwit, reeve, ruff, rail, The cock, the curlew, and the quail, These, and thy choicest viands, do extend Their tastes unto the lower end Of thy glad table; not a dish more known To thee, than unto any one: But as thy meat, so thy immortal wine Makes the smirk face of each to shine, And spring fresh rose-buds, while the salt, the wit, Flows from the wine, and graces it; While Reverence, waiting at the bashful board, Honours my lady and my lord. No scurril jest, no open scene is laid ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick

... she perceived that this was an illusion created by the proportion and thickness of his body. He was, in fact, half a head taller than she, and Stella stood five feet five. His gray eyes met hers squarely, with a cool, impersonal quality of gaze. There was neither smirk nor embarrassment in his straightforward glance. He was, in effect, "sizing her up" just as he would have looked casually over a logger asking him for a job. Stella sensed that, and resenting it momentarily, failed to match his manner. She flushed. Fyfe smiled, a ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... quizzing-glasses. There is, at times, something almost German in the British lack of delicacy, which is, so far, rare with us here, though I doubt not the French will taint a few among us. But insolence in stare and smirk is not among our listed sins, though, doubtless, otherwise the list is full as long as that of any nation, and longer, too, ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... had crept into their visitor's soft, impersonal voice as he gibed the boatswain. Martin, staring upward at the lantern-lighted face, half expected to see the smirk flee the lips that threatened torture, and the hateful passions that inspired Ichi's gloating to reveal themselves in his features. But no hint of emotion disturbed the surface of that bland, yellow mask the one-time sea cook wore for a face; only the eyes were leagued with ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... infernal queen's pawn opening it would have been different. She beat me six times running, and on the last game I pulled a superb orang-outang, but it was too late. She saw mate in four and gave me that serpent smirk I ...
— Competition • James Causey

... if I came lying and pretending, and let you lie and pretend, and let your parents and Sam lie and pretend, you would find me—almost tolerable. Well, I'm not that kind. When there's no especial reason one way or the other, I'm willing to smirk and grimace and dodder and drivel, like the rest of your friends, those ladies and gentlemen. But when there's business to be transacted, I am business-like. Let's not begin with your thinking you are deceiving me, and so hating me and ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips

... accuse a man like Captain Riley of smirking, but his smile might have been mistaken for a smirk when he turned from the telephone. He straightened it out at once, however, so that he spoke with a ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... Basil answered with a smirk that fees and legal affairs were inseparable; the latter naturally involved the former. Not that he cared for money, he remarked, especially in this time of general woe. Still, it would never do for a lawyer, however humble, to create a precedent which might be used against ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... nor to the left as she swung her leaders around the corner, yet no sign of the town's retrogression since her last visit escaped her—any more than did the mean small-town smirk upon the faces of a group of doorway loafers, who commented humorously upon ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... unfortunate want of delicacy there was about these vagrants. A cat that takes your food and growls at you for the favour, a cat that would eat you if he dared, is a pretty revelation. Ca donne furieusement a penser. It gives you a suspicion of just how far the polish we most of us smirk over will go. My cats at San Lorenzo knew some few moments of peace between two and three in the afternoon. That would have been the time to get up a testimonial to the kind soul who fed them. Try them at five and they would ignore you. But try them ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett

... lingered, fiddling about in carefully folding and arranging his garment. In the course of this, and in moving about the narrow cabin, he took apparently casual glances at Baxter and the Frenchman, and I saw from his satisfied, quiet smirk that each was sound and fast asleep. And then he thrust his feet into a pair of bedroom slippers, as loud in their colouring as his pyjamas, and suddenly turning down the lamp with a twist of his wicked-looking fingers, he glided out of the door into the darkness above. At that I, too, glided ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... with a seductive smirk, asked, "what he was going to give them?" The poet replied, "a little thing of his own—'Rosalie; or, the ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... respect demanded of all German soldiers, also cast swift glances in the same direction, and even went so far—seeing that the snappy little officer's back was turned and his attention otherwise engaged—as to grin quite openly, and smirk, as they watched the flaming face of the Sergeant. As for the latter, perspiration was pouring from beneath his helmet, the man's hands were twitching, while his eyes were rolling in the most horrible ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... smirk of the face, or a favor, Still shelters the cheat where he crawls; And the truth we began with needs braver ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop

... eyes grew dim with rapture, alarm, and ineffable delight. I was ashamed in presence of the old woman, who began to smirk and wink odiously, and I flew like an arrow to the loneliest nook of the garden. There I threw myself on the grass beneath the hazel-bushes and read the note again, repeating the words by heart, and then re-reading them over and over, while the sunlight ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... aged very greatly; even the pupils of his eyes had acquired a milky hue—like that in infants—and on his lips there appeared not the discerning smile of former days, but that strainedly-sweet, unconscious smirk which never leaves the faces of very old people even ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... found in him. He was most becomingly dressed. He wore a white cravat, and no collar. He had light hair closely cut, and his face was as smooth as a woman's. His shirt was whiter than any shirt I have ever seen before or since, and it was made of very fine material. He carried an agreeable smirk upon his countenance, and he disinterred, now and then, some very long and extraordinary word from the dictionary, when he was particularly desirous either to make himself understood or conceal his meaning. I had almost omitted to add, that he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... about in the direction her companion had indicated, to see a large, overdressed man staring at them. There was a smirk on his face, and as Harriet caught his eye she saw him rise and, to her horror, realized that he was advancing toward ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... saw that we were talking of the boy, her interest in the conversation vanished, even more quickly than her appetite. She had to go, she said suddenly; she was so sorry, and the discontented curiosity of her look gave place again to the smirk of affected politeness. ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... you! The more shame for you to take them. Better throw them away than wear them as a badge of degradation. Yes, throw them away, or send them back whence they came. Wash that paint off your face. Get rid of that made-up smirk around your mouth. Remember that you ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes

... than the preceding one the waiter replied with a smirk and a grimace, "Thanks, your honour, for your good opinion. I assure your honour that I ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... happen to have that proof with you?" called out Frank. Upon hearing this, the other hastened up, though there was a satisfied smirk on his face, as though ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen

... amazing advent was all fire, Stoop to the leaden level of cold water? A spectacle indeed to tame and tire The zeal of his most confident supporter. What will DUNRAVEN say? Quidnuncs will quiz, And Balfour-worshippers will smirk and chuckle, And ask if he considers it "good biz" To the Teetotal interest to truckle. They may be right—or wrong, these babblers busy. They were not always ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various

... O'Hagan rose to his feet, made a bow to the company, and made an apology to the drover. He stood there, a blackguard on the face of him, but a gentleman in spite of that undefinable and vaguely repulsive smirk which played about his straight and refined mouth. He slunk ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... after contriving 200 A wheel-work image as if it were living, Should find with delight it could motion to strike him! So found the Duke, and his mother like him: The lady hardly got a rebuff— That had not been contemptuous enough, 205 With his cursed smirk, as he nodded applause, And kept ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... not unimpressive in her new dignity of wifehood; but the dignity bore traces of diligent rehearsal, and left singularly little to the imagination. By her side, Scott, looking down upon his fellow townsmen, wore the self-conscious smirk of a sheepish schoolboy; and the best of his fellow townsmen respected him the more on that account. Catia was the more impressive of the two, they told themselves; but there was no especial sense in a pair of young things like these, trying to act as if their getting ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... shouting, and ushers responding, gradually subsided into a whisper of, "That's Jorrocks! That's Cheatum!" as the belligerent parties took their places by their respective counsel. Silence having been called and procured, Mr. Smirk, a goodish-looking man for a lawyer, having deliberately unfolded his brief, which his clerk had scored plentifully in the margin, to make the attorney believe he had read it very attentively, rose to address the court—a signal for half ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... the little. The low hills are a-smirk with flowers and greenery; the dominating peaks, austere and desolate, holding ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... exclaimed the Professor with a knowing smirk, "don't it tell you to choose between the two? And how can you tell if you don't even look—whether the golt ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... me, and I had reasons for avoiding such curiosity,—reasons well enough founded, for instantly grins, broader than before, widened the mouths of the two married ladies, while even Miss Thrale began a titter that half choaked her, and Augusta, nodding to me with an arch smirk, said, "Miss Burney, I wish ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay

... of you to say so," Mrs. Goose replied with a smirk. "If I keep on at this rate you'll think I like to talk as well as Mamma Speckle does; but I've heard of you so often from our people around here, that it seemed as if I must have a whole lot of stories to tell, else you'd say I wasn't much of anybody after all. But about Mr. Dorking Rooster: ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice

... Mr. Granger's establishment with regard to the morning letters, which were dealt out to each guest with his or her early cup of tea, and not kept back for public distribution, to the confusion of some luckless recipient, who feels it difficult to maintain an agreeable smirk upon his countenance while he reads, that unless such or such an account is settled immediately, proceedings ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... was the main points about her. I've seen a lot of diff'rent kinds of smiles, meanin' and unmeanin'; but this chronic half-smirk of Madame Roulaire's was about the most unconvincin' performance I've ever watched. Why, even a blind man could tell she didn't really mean it! Outside of that, she was just a plain, pie faced sort of female with shrinkin', apologizin' ways and a set ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford

... Bugs Butler, with a final smirk, left Sally and dived under the ropes. There was a stir of interest in the audience, though the newspaper men, blase through familiarity, exhibited no emotion. Presently Mr. Burrowes reappeared, shepherding a young man whose face was hidden by the ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... exciting. Some few business men may smirk at their stenographers; some few painters may behave in the same way to their models. I fancy it's the exception to the rule in any kind ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers

... and was strictly proper. But his way of talking to women and about them was more odious than the way of a debauchee. He invariably called them "the ladies," or more exactly, "the leedies"; and he hardly ever spoke to a "leedy" without a smirk and some ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford

... close at hand made them both turn their heads. Along the winding path came Da Souza, with an ugly smirk upon his white face, smoking a cigar whose odour seemed to poison the air. Trent turned upon him ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... before, had vast confidence in his own powers of persuasion; and general influence with women, and on this occasion, his really handsome features were made vulgar by a smirk of self-conceit which he could not conceal, owing to his natural vanity and a presentiment of success that is almost inseparable from persons of his class, who can scarcely look even upon the most positive and decided rejection by a woman ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... would have to tell more fibs, and brand new ones, too, since not even a blind man would believe him ill now! It was something of a coincidence that Don should run across Walton in the corridor a few minutes later. Don was for passing by with no recognition of the other, but Walton, with a smirk, placed himself fairly ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... suggestion and had been helped by him—helped and frightened and made to see. And then there rose before him the leering face of a keeper of a second-hand book store in Cleveland who some weeks before had pushed across the counter to him a paper-covered copy of "Nana's Brother," saying with a smirk, "That's some sporty stuff." And he wondered what he should have thought had he bought the book to feed the imagination the bookseller's comment ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... asked or has had more to give. She asks your life, your thoughts, your passions—every breath of your body must be a breath of desire for her and her alone. You think that you can strut about the world, a talking doll, pay court to women, listen to the voices that praise you, smirk your way through the days, and all the time climb. My young friend, no! I tell you no! Don't interrupt me. I am going to speak my ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... simper and smirk and tap Pierre Radisson with her fan, with a glimmer of ill-meaning through her winks and nods that might have brought the blush to a ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... cried Jenkins, pocketing the money with a smirk, and bowing with the things in his hands, "we are to have the honor of seeing your lordship again, as you leave ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... features; front, exterior; obverse; facet; effrontery, confidence, assurance, audacity, impudence. Associated Words: facial, domino, complexion, multifaced, rouge, cosmetic, grimace, Janus-faced, lineament, profile, silhouette, maskoid, smirk, physiognomist. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... was addressed to me, though that little was evidently meant to be particularly civil. But, a little before she took her departure, which was soon after dinner, she asked me with some abruptness, though with a considerable smirk of meaning in her face, if I "knew a Mr. Patrick Delaney." I frankly admitted that I had not this pleasure; and with a still more significant smirk, ending in a very affected simper, meant to be very pleasant, she informed ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... elapsed since Sam had seen him last, an extraordinary transformation had taken place in this young man. His wan look had disappeared. His eyes were bright. His face wore that beastly self-satisfied smirk which you see in pictures advertising certain makes of fine-mesh underwear. If Eustace Hignett had been a full-page drawing in a magazine with "My dear fellow, I always wear Sigsbee's Super-fine Featherweight!" printed underneath him, ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... change remaining from seventy dollars greenbacks swapped for six hundred and ninety miles of travel at ten cents a mile. I hastily stepped aside. A subtle fragrance and a rustle warned me that I was obstructing a representative of the fair sex. So did the smirk and smile ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin

... whole countenance. He had scarcely glanced at the horse, when, drawing in his cheeks, he thrust out his lips very much after the manner of a baboon when he sees a piece of sugar held out towards him. "Is this horse yours?" said he, suddenly turning towards me, with a kind of smirk. "It's my horse," said I; "are you the person who wishes to make an honest penny by it?" "How?" said he, drawing up his head with a very consequential look, and speaking with a very haughty tone; "what do you mean?" We looked at each other full in the face; after a ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... "The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC". The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt. Perhaps in recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt. ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... of fifteen, with hair the color of fresh sawdust, white eyebrows, and an uncommonly wide-awake look. Ringdove, his father's successor, could never teach Perry the smirk, the grace, and the seductiveness of the counter, so the boy had found his place in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various



Words linked to "Smirk" :   smirker, simper, smile



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