Word.ws English Dictionary

grinning

/ˈɡɹɪnɪŋ/

grinning is the present participle and gerund of grin.

Meaning of grin

Verb

grin (third-person singular simple present grins, present participle grinning, simple past and past participle grinned)

  1. (intransitive) To smile, parting the lips so as to show the teeth.
    • Why do you grin? Did I say something funny?
  2. (transitive) To express by grinning.
    • She grinned pleasure at his embarrassment.
  3. (dated, intransitive) To show the teeth, like a snarling dog.
    • The pangs of death do make him grin.1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  4. (transitive) To grin as part of producing a particular facial expression, such as a smile or sneer.
    • He grinned a broad smile when I told him the result.

See all 6 meanings of grin

Noun

grinning (countable and uncountable, plural grinnings)

  1. The act or expression of one who grins.
    • The agitations resembled the grinnings and writhings of a galvanized corpse, not the struggles of an athletic man.1835, Thomas Babington Macaulay, History (essay in the Edinburgh Review)

Forms of grinning

pluralgrinnings

Phrases with grinning

Words that rhyme with grinning

Questions about grinning

What does grinning mean?
Grinning means the act or expression of one who grins.
What is grinning the present participle and gerund of?
Grinning is the present participle and gerund of grin.
What part of speech is grinning?
Grinning is a noun.
How do you pronounce grinning?
Grinning is pronounced /ˈɡɹɪnɪŋ/.
What is the plural of grinning?
The plural of grinning is grinnings.

Words near grinning in the dictionary

  1. grinnest
  2. grinneth
  3. grinnie
  4. grinnies
  5. grinnin'
  6. grinning
  7. grinning and bearing it
  8. grinning from ear to ear
  9. grinning like a mule eating briars
  10. grinningly
  11. grinnings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grinning (page history and authors); grin (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-grinning.ogg.

Cite this entry: “grinning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grinning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.