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Grin vs Girn - What's the difference?

grin | girn |

Girn is a anagram of grin.



In intransitive terms the difference between grin and girn

is that grin is to smile, parting the lips so as to show the teeth while girn is to make elaborate unnatural and distorted faces as a form of amusement or in a girning competition.

grin

English

Etymology 1

Before 1000 CE - From (etyl) grinnen, from (etyl) grennian; compare to (etyl)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A smile in which the lips are parted to reveal the teeth.
  • * 1997, Linda Howard, Son of the Morning, Simon & Schuster, pages 364:
    • When the ceremony was finished a wide grin''' broke across his face, and it was that '''grin she saw, relieved and happy all at once.

    Verb

    (intransitive)
  • (lb) To smile, parting the lips so as to show the teeth.
  • :
  • *{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=15 citation , passage=‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough! […] What about the kid's clothes? I don't suppose they were anything to write home about, but didn't you keep anything? A bootee or a bit of embroidery or anything at all?’}}
  • (lb) To express by grinning.
  • :
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:Grinned horrible a ghastly smile.
  • *
  • *:"Mid-Lent, and the Enemy grins ," remarked Selwyn as he started for church with Nina and the children. Austin, knee-deep in a dozen Sunday supplements, refused to stir; poor little Eileen was now convalescent from grippe, but still unsteady on her legs; her maid had taken the grippe, and now moaned all day: "Mon dieu! Mon dieu! Che fais mourir! "
  • To show the teeth, like a snarling dog.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
  • *:The pangs of death do make him grin .
  • *
  • *:They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come by his death fairly. And why else was he put away up there out of sight?—and so magnificent a brush as he had too.
    • Derived terms
    * fish-eating grin * pickin' and grinnin' * shit-eating grin

    See also

    * grimace * smile

    Etymology 2

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A snare; a gin.
  • * Remedy of Love
    • Like a bird that hasteth to his grin .

    Anagrams

    * ----

    girn

    English

    Alternative forms

    * gurn * gurne

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (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.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A vocalization similar to a cat's purring.
  • *2002 , edited by Richard J. Davidson, Handbook of Affective Sciences , Oxford University Press, p. 569:
    • A different vocalization, a girn, simiular to a cat's purring, was observed in infants reunited with their mothers...

    See also

    * gowl

    Anagrams

    * * *