simpering

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English

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Adjective

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simpering (comparative more simpering, superlative most simpering)

  1. Affected, smug, and supercilious.
    • 1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXI, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 214:
      Why, look at him—look at this simpering self-righteous mug!
    • 1926, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises:
      I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure.
    • 2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:
      I had high hopes when I moved to Spyglass, but simpering gossip on celebrity parties seems to be the closest I've gotten so far to Dad's vocation.
    • 2015, L. E. Modesitt, Jr, Madness in Solidar, →ISBN:
      That sounds almost simpering. I hate sounding simpering, and over a trifling increase of four coppers on a gold, I definitely do not wish to sound simpering.

Verb

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simpering

  1. present participle and gerund of simper

Noun

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simpering (plural simperings)

  1. The act of one who simpers.
    • 1740, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded:
      Well, but Polly attended, as I said; and there were strange simperings, and bowing, and courtesying, between them; the honest gentleman seeming not to know how to let his mistress wait upon him []

See also

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Anagrams

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