smirk
part of speech
verb (smirk, smirks, smirked, smirking); noun (a smirk, smirks)
meaning for a pupil
1) To smirk is to smile in a smug, silly or unkind way, often because you think you are cleverer than someone or are pleased about their bad luck. tree →
2) A smirk is a smile like that. tree →
sense in the lessons
In stories a smirk tells the reader that a character is pleased with themselves, sneaky or mean, not truly friendly. In everyday life adults may say «Wipe that smirk off your face!» when a child is being cheeky. Phrases: a smug smirk, wipe the smirk off someone's face.
examples
- The bully smirked when I dropped my books. tree →
- «I told you so,» she said with a smirk. tree →
- Wipe that smirk off your face and say sorry. tree →
- The villain smirked as he locked the door. tree →
- He tried not to smirk when the teacher got the answer wrong. tree →
- There was a little smirk on the cat's face after it stole the fish. tree →
- Her smirk showed she knew the secret. tree →
- They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. tree →
note
A smirk is not the same as a smile or a grin: it is usually unkind or smug. Past form smirked. Countable noun: a smirk, two smirks.
In the corpora
- Jake says «Sorry, innit» to Sam with a big smirk while his mates snigger.
- A sorry said with a smirk or a sarcastic voice is just another dig, and you are allowed to say so.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «smirk» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.