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  1. leer love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To look with a sidelong glance, indicative especially of sexual desire or sly and malicious intent.
  2. n. A desirous, sly, or knowing look.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The cheek; more generally, the face.
  2. n. Complexion; hue; color.
  3. n. Flesh; skin.
  4. n. The flank or loin.
  5. To look obliquely or askant; now, especially, to look obliquely with significance; cast a look expressive of some passion, as contempt, malignity, etc., especially a sly or amorous look.
  6. To give an oblique glance or leer with.
  7. To affect by leering, in a way specified.
  8. n. A significant side glance; a glance expressive of some passion, as malignity, amorousness, etc.; an arch or affected glance or cast of countenance.
  9. Empty; unoccupied.
  10. Hence Frivolous; trifling.
  11. Left.
  12. n. A dialectal variant of lire.
  13. n. Tape, braid, binding, etc.
  14. n. In glass manufacturing, an annealing-furnace in which glassware is slowly cooled and annealed. It consists usually of a long chamber with a furnace at one end and having either a track of rails over which the glass is moved on cars through the furnace or a traveling apron for the same purpose.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Alternative form of lehr.
  2. v. intransitive To look sideways or obliquely; now especially with sexual desire or malicious intent.
  3. v. transitive To entice with a leer or leers.
  4. n. A significant side glance; a glance expressive of some passion, as malignity, amorousness, etc.; a sly or lecherous look.
  5. n. An arch or affected glance or cast of countenance.
  6. n. obsolete The cheek.
  7. n. obsolete The face.
  8. n. obsolete One's appearance; countenance.
  9. n. obsolete Complexion; hue; blee; colour.
  10. n. obsolete Flesh; skin.
  11. n. The flank or loin.
  12. adj. Empty; unoccupied; clear.
  13. adj. Destitute; lacking; wanting.
  14. adj. Faint from lack of food; hungry.
  15. adj. Thin; faint.
  16. adj. Having no load or burden; free.
  17. v. transitive To teach.
  18. v. transitive To learn.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. obsolete To learn.
  2. adj. Empty of contents.
  3. adj. Destitute of a rider; and hence, led, not ridden.
  4. adj. Wanting sense or seriousness; trifling; trivolous.
  5. n. An oven in which glassware is annealed.
  6. n. obsolete The cheek.
  7. n. obsolete Complexion; aspect; appearance.
  8. n. A distorted expression of the face, or an indirect glance of the eye, conveying a sinister or immodest suggestion.
  9. v. To look with a leer; to look askance with a suggestive expression, as of hatred, contempt, lust, etc.; to cast a sidelong lustful or malign look.
  10. v. To entice with a leer, or leers.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. look suggestively or obliquely; look or gaze with a sly, immodest, or malign expression
  2. n. a suggestive or sneering look or grin
  3. n. a facial expression of contempt or scorn; the upper lip curls

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English leren, from Old English lǣran ("to teach, instruct, guide, enjoin, advise, persuade, urge, preach, hand down"), from Proto-Germanic *laizijanan (“to teach”), from Proto-Indo-European *leis- (“track, footprint, furrow, trace”). Cognate with Dutch leren ("to teach"), German lehren ("to teach"), Swedish lära ("to teach"). Related to Old English lār ("lore, learning, science, art of teaching, preaching, doctrine, study, precept, exhortation, advice, instigation, history, story, cunning "). See lore. (Wiktionary)
  2. Probably from obsolete leer, cheek, from Middle English ler, from Old English hlēor; see kleu- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Gladys, overhearing, gave us all a grin, or perhaps the word leer describes it better, revealing that she had very few teeth and that the ones which were left were horridly like fangs.”

    Simon & Schuster: To Ruin a Queen

  • “Her smile is now more sneer than leer, which is how I know she respects me somewhat.”

    Simon & Schuster: Fall On Your Knees

  • “The leer was a parody of Pham's self-assured smile.”

    A Fire Upon the Deep

  • “I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body.”

    David Copperfield

  • “The word "leer" is useful: It lets you know there's a line you will be judged by.”

    Archive 2007-06-01

  • “There was a kind of leer about his lips; he seemed laughing in his sleeve at some person or thing; his whole air was anything but that of a true man.”

    Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte

  • “UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, and this is an excuse sometime for men to kind of leer at your on the street.”

    CNN Transcript Jul 12, 2002

  • “If you can imagine a mixture of hate, triumph, fear, and despair, with a kind of leer running through it, you will get some notion of the pheeal that rose and sank and wavered and quavered far away across the Waingunga.”

    The Second Jungle Book

  • “It is really the clever portraiture of the habitual "leer" of a somewhat wearied sensual woman.”

    More Science From an Easy Chair

  • “As a result of the televised "leer", as cable channels dub it, O knows "he would endure his wife's silent disinterest in him tonight, the punishment she reserved for those of his offences that had embarrassed her as well as him.”

    The Guardian World News

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‘leer’ has been looked up 3757 times, loved by 7 people, added to 39 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 4.