grin and bear it
grin and bear it verb: to endure a difficult or disagreeable situation with good humor.
Verb
grin and bear it (third-person singular simple present grins and bears it, present participle grinning and bearing it, simple past grinned and bore it, past participle grinned and borne it)
- To endure a difficult or disagreeable situation with good humor.
- They made me work the Saturday of our wedding anniversary; what could I say? I just had to grin and bear it.
Forms of grin and bear it
| third-person singular present | grins and bears it |
|---|---|
| present participle | grinning and bearing it |
| past | grinned and bore it |
| past participle | grinned and borne it |
Questions about grin and bear it
- What does grin and bear it mean?
- Grin and bear it means to endure a difficult or disagreeable situation with good humor.
- What part of speech is grin and bear it?
- Grin and bear it is a verb.
- What is the past tense of grin and bear it?
- The past tense of grin and bear it is grinned and bore it.
Words near grin and bear it in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grin and bear it (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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