grimace
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A contorted facial expression, often expressing contempt or pain.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
grimuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡɹɪməs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A contorted facial expression, often expressing contempt or pain.
verb
intransitive
To make grimaces; to distort one's face; to make faces.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A contorted facial expression, often expressing contempt or pain.
Used this way, grimace is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use grimace
- “He grimaced when he saw the amount of homework he had to do.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.