Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In a simpering manner; affectedly.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb In a simpering manner.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb In a simpering way.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adverb with a lack of courage and determination

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • It's exactly the sort of simperingly earnest, warbly bum-sneeze we have come to know and ignore over the last 10 years.

    This week's new singles 2011

  • I would, however, be simperingly grateful if any Aston Martin executive happens to read this and feels like offering me a free sample of their wares, in which unlikely event I can guarantee my endorsement would be unreserved and heartfelt to a frankly pathetic extent …

    Brian Ruckley · On the Placing of Product 2008

  • She sensed morbidly that she was acquiring the propitiatory, simperingly pathetic air of the disabled.

    She Closed Her Eyes 2010

  • In part it was the “anecdotic side” to Johnson that made his work appealing: Weekley reported, for instance, that “[a] lady, who simperingly congratulated him on his omission of all indecent words from the Dictionary, was met with the truly Johnsonian retort: ‘So you have been looking for them, Madam?’”

    A Taxonomy of Knowledge 2006

  • In part it was the “anecdotic side” to Johnson that made his work appealing: Weekley reported, for instance, that “[a] lady, who simperingly congratulated him on his omission of all indecent words from the Dictionary, was met with the truly Johnsonian retort: ‘So you have been looking for them, Madam?’”

    A Taxonomy of Knowledge 2006

  • The vocabulary used to describe a man like himself, once full of solemn dignity, has been reduced to the simperingly ironic.

    In a Strange City Lippman, Laura, 1959- 2001

  • A lady, who simperingly congratulated him on his omission of all indecent words from the Dictionary, was met with the truly Johnsonian retort: 'So you have been looking for them, Madam?'

    On Dictionaries 1969

  • She thanked him simperingly and tucked it in her knapsack.

    Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town Cory Doctorow

  • "I'm called Hui Hsiang, (orchid fragrance)," that waiting-maid rejoined simperingly.

    Hung Lou Meng, Book I Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books Xueqin Cao

  • He wheeled round and stared dumbly at the weak faced one, who looked at a complete loss, but managed to stammer simperingly that it was a part of the United States.

    The Enormous Room 1928

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