Word.ws English Dictionary

smile-smirk

smile-smirk verb: to smile while smirking.

Verb

smile-smirk (third-person singular simple present smile-smirks, present participle smile-smirking, simple past and past participle smile-smirked)

  1. To smile while smirking.
    • She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 11: Sirens]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 256
    • Having inarticulately “rung the bell,” Douce “smilesmirks,” but nothing comes from her lips until the show is over and she teases Blazes Boylan (flirting with him, not Lenehan) that he is “the essence of vulgarity?' Never mind that her surname is French for “sweet,” she goes sour when Boylan leaves...2013, Jeffrey Miller, The Structures of Law and Literature

Noun

smile-smirk (plural smile-smirks)

  1. 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.2012, Jim Marquez, A Moveable Beast
    • 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.2014, Nicole Williams, The Crash Trilogy

Examples of smile-smirk in a sentence

  • He clanged open the register, still smile-smirking—Holy moly, it was really happening, what an adventure, wait'll he told the guys!2014, John Nichols, American Blood:
  • He wiped his own face as an indicator, that same smile-smirk painted on his stupid face.2014, Zoe Foster Blake, The Wrong Girl:
  • His lips do that smile-smirk thing again and he sits up.2014, Lisanne Koster, Happily Ever After, Yes Please:

Forms of smile-smirk

Verb
third-person singular presentsmile-smirks
present participlesmile-smirking
past participlesmile-smirked
pastsmile-smirked
Noun
pluralsmile-smirks

Origin of smile-smirk

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

Questions about smile-smirk

What does smile-smirk mean?
Smile-smirk means to smile while smirking.
How do you use smile-smirk in a sentence?
He clanged open the register, still smile-smirking—Holy moly, it was really happening, what an adventure, wait'll he told the guys!
What part of speech is smile-smirk?
Smile-smirk can be a verb or a noun.
What is the past tense of smile-smirk?
The past tense of smile-smirk is smile-smirked.

Words near smile-smirk in the dictionary

  1. smile like a mule eating briars
  2. smile line
  3. smile lines
  4. smile school
  5. smile schools
  6. smile-smirk
  7. smile-smirked
  8. smile-smirking
  9. smile-smirks
  10. smiled
  11. smiled a thousand smiles

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smile-smirk (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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Cite this entry: “smile-smirk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/smile-smirk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.