Grimace vs Girn - What's the difference?
grimace | girn |
A distortion of the countenance, whether habitual, from affectation, or momentary and occasional, to express some feeling, as contempt, disapprobation, complacency, etc.; a smirk; a made-up face.
* "I trundle off to bed, eyes brimming, face twisted into a grateful glistening grimace , and awaken the next day wondering what all the fuss was about." — Opera News , March 2005
To make grimaces; to distort one's face; to make faces.
(label) To grimace; to snarl.
*1999 , (Jessica Stirling), The Wind from the Hills , St Martin's Press.
To whinge, moan, complain.
*2008 , (James Kelman), Kieron Smith, Boy , Penguin 2009, p. 107:
(label) To make elaborate unnatural and distorted faces as a form of amusement or in a girning competition.
A vocalization similar to a cat's purring.
*2002 , edited by Richard J. Davidson, Handbook of Affective Sciences , Oxford University Press, p. 569:
As nouns the difference between grimace and girn
is that grimace is a distortion of the countenance, whether habitual, from affectation, or momentary and occasional, to express some feeling, as contempt, disapprobation, complacency, etc; a smirk; a made-up face while girn is a vocalization similar to a cat's purring.As verbs the difference between grimace and girn
is that grimace is to make grimaces; to distort one's face; to make faces while girn is (label) to grimace; to snarl.grimace
English
Noun
(en noun)Verb
(grimac)girn
English
Alternative forms
* gurn * gurneVerb
(en verb)Noun
(en noun)- A different vocalization, a girn, simiular to a cat's purring, was observed in infants reunited with their mothers...