Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To look with a sidelong glance, indicative especially of sexual desire or sly and malicious intent.
- n. A desirous, sly, or knowing look.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The cheek; more generally, the face.
- n. Complexion; hue; color.
- n. Flesh; skin.
- n. The flank or loin.
- 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.
- To give an oblique glance or leer with.
- To affect by leering, in a way specified.
- n. A significant side glance; a glance expressive of some passion, as malignity, amorousness, etc.; an arch or affected glance or cast of countenance.
- Empty; unoccupied.
- Hence Frivolous; trifling.
- Left.
- n. A dialectal variant of lire.
- n. Tape, braid, binding, etc.
- 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
- n. Alternative form of lehr.
- v. intransitive To look sideways or obliquely; now especially with sexual desire or malicious intent.
- v. transitive To entice with a leer or leers.
- n. A significant side glance; a glance expressive of some passion, as malignity, amorousness, etc.; a sly or lecherous look.
- n. An arch or affected glance or cast of countenance.
- n. obsolete The cheek.
- n. obsolete The face.
- n. obsolete One's appearance; countenance.
- n. obsolete Complexion; hue; blee; colour.
- n. obsolete Flesh; skin.
- n. The flank or loin.
- adj. Empty; unoccupied; clear.
- adj. Destitute; lacking; wanting.
- adj. Faint from lack of food; hungry.
- adj. Thin; faint.
- adj. Having no load or burden; free.
- v. transitive To teach.
- v. transitive To learn.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To learn.
- adj. Empty of contents.
- adj. Destitute of a rider; and hence, led, not ridden.
- adj. Wanting sense or seriousness; trifling; trivolous.
- n. An oven in which glassware is annealed.
- n. obsolete The cheek.
- n. obsolete Complexion; aspect; appearance.
- n. A distorted expression of the face, or an indirect glance of the eye, conveying a sinister or immodest suggestion.
- 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.
- v. To entice with a leer, or leers.
WordNet 3.0
- v. look suggestively or obliquely; look or gaze with a sly, immodest, or malign expression
- n. a suggestive or sneering look or grin
- n. a facial expression of contempt or scorn; the upper lip curls
Etymologies
- From Middle English ler, leor ("face, cheek"), from Old English hlēor ("face, cheek, profile"), from Proto-Germanic *hleuzan (“ear, cheek”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlews- (“temple of the forehead, cheek”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlewe-, *ḱlew- (“to hear”). Cognate with Scots lire, lere ("face, appearance, complexion, blee"), Dutch lier ("cheek"), Swedish lyra ("pout"), Norwegian lia ("hillside"), Icelandic hlýr ("the face, cheek, countenance"). Related to Old English hlyst ("sense of hearing, listening") and hlysnan ("to listen"). More at list, listen. (Wiktionary)
- 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.”
“Her smile is now more sneer than leer, which is how I know she respects me somewhat.”
“The leer was a parody of Pham's self-assured smile.”
“I wonder now, when I recall his leer, that I did not collar him, and try to shake the breath out of his body.”
“The word "leer" is useful: It lets you know there's a line you will be judged by.”
“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.”
“UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right, and this is an excuse sometime for men to kind of leer at your on the street.”
“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.”
“It is really the clever portraiture of the habitual "leer" of a somewhat wearied sensual woman.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘leer’.
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SMILE and other emotive verbs
Single verbs that describe expression or emotional reaction. "He __ed" (smiled/gulped/scoffed...)
smile, beam, sneer, scoff, giggle, laugh, snigger, scowl, grin, leer, wince, grimace and 97 more...
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Public List: Two by Fives
This is an experiment in public lists--something I've been thinking about for some time. The goal is to create a collection of short, powerful, evocative words.
This is an open list. A...icy, howl, hymn, thorn, fire, vile, mist, blunt, scum, dark, shot, gleam and 221 more...
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Words from Blood Meridian
visage, affray, scullery, miasma, mirth, purlieu, tacit, benighted, wickiup, corral, amble, accoutre and 210 more...
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emordnilap
reviled, loot, no, ta, rat, part, pit, stop, spat, ten, mad, mart and 108 more...
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I am : looking
To describe facial expressions when attending to something.
look, peer, glance, stare, glare, glower, ogle, peek, observe, scrutinize, gaze, gape and 18 more...
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Notable
undulate, priaprism, alphanumeric, conjure, love, roughshod, helpless, palatial, chortle, swimmingly, mustachioed, symbiotic and 21 more...
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Darker Connotations
Deep, deep, dark
penchant, ravenous, rend, rupture, simper, leer, obsession, malady, erratic, asylum, turgid
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The insulting ones
ingrate, sycophant, inane, wanton, pompous, vitriolic, ghastly, cesspool, abhor, highfalutin, obsequious, insidious and 25 more...
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Here's Looking At You Kid
Synonyms or funny substitutes for the word 'look'.
gaze, glare, saw, penned, peeked, poked, bore, blazed, glance, search, gaped, gawped and 41 more...
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Words For Novel
viridity, effigy, paragon, congested, acrid, lilting, clandestine, plethora, accolade, sardonic, naïve, reckoning and 285 more...
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What Do You Mean $
ahh these hurt.....
hermit, prone, maxim, guise, solvenly, lurid, lax, amiable, irate, cloister, mediate, nettle and 100 more...
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wasserperson's Words
kakistocracy, telebomb, adroit, pensive, verbatim, asinine, anarchic, didactic, subsequent, mirthful, gregarious, sybarite and 102 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Wordwild's Delights
Delightful words to read and use
plangent, ribald, titubant, sidereal, pelagic, improvident, dolorous, parlous, baleful, precatory, pied, mephitic and 247 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for leer.

oroboros Reel in reverse. Jul 22, 2007