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Grin vs Grim - What's the difference?

grin | grim |

As a noun grin

is a smile in which the lips are parted to reveal the teeth.

As a verb grin

is to smile, parting the lips so as to show the teeth.

As an adjective grim is

dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding.

As a proper noun Grim is

{{surname|A=An|English}}, probably derived from Old English grimm or Old Norse grimr or grimmr.

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

    * ----

    grim

    English

    Adjective

    (grimmer)
  • dismal and gloomy, cold and forbidding
    • Life was grim in many northern industrial towns.
  • rigid and unrelenting
    • His grim determination enabled him to win.
  • ghastly or sinister
    • A grim castle overshadowed the village.
  • * 2012 March 22, Scott Tobias, “ The Hunger Games''”, in ''AV Club :
    • In movie terms, it suggests Paul Verhoeven in Robocop/Starship Troopers mode, an R-rated bloodbath where the grim spectacle of children murdering each other on television is bread-and-circuses for the age of reality TV, enforced by a totalitarian regime to keep the masses at bay.
  • (UK, slang) disgusting; gross
    • Wanna see the dead rat I found in my fridge? —Mate, that is grim !