smile-smirk

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smile-smirk

Where it comes from

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

verb smile-smirks · smile-smirking · smile-smirked

To smile while smirking. She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren’t men?), but, lightward gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan.

noun smile-smirks

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.

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MLA

"smile-smirk." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/smile-smirk. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

smile-smirk. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/smile-smirk

Chicago

"smile-smirk." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/smile-smirk.

BibTeX

@misc{smile_smirk_2026,
  title = {smile-smirk},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/smile-smirk},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}