simpering

English

Adjective

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

simpering

1. present participle and gerund of simper

Noun

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

• simperer
• simping

Anagrams

• emprising, impingers, premising