leer
1to look with a sideways or oblique glance, especially suggestive of lascivious interest or sly and malicious intent: Go away! I can't concentrate with you leering at me.
a lascivious or sly look.
Origin of leer
1Words Nearby leer
Other definitions for leer (2 of 2)
having no burden or load.
faint for lack of food; hungry.
Origin of leer
2Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use leer in a sentence
In addition to parading on the streets as an effigy whose destruction delighted audiences, he leered from political cartoons and prints.
The revolutionary roots of satanic panic still invoked in American politics | Zara Anishanslin | August 5, 2022 | Washington PostSeven women have gone public with descriptions of creepy behavior — unwanted touching, leering looks, sexually loaded commentary — for which the governor was forced to apologize, although he maintains it was “unintentional.”
Andrew Cuomo is plummeting, and there’s no one left to catch him | David Von Drehle | March 26, 2021 | Washington PostHe told me he’d become painfully aware of “his leer” on Zoom meetings, so he did his best to smile and not talk with his mouth full — awkward on any date, but even more off-putting over video chat.
Date Lab: Mariah Carey. Alligators. Urology. Is this any way to start a romance? | Damona Hoffman | January 21, 2021 | Washington PostHe is like you would imagine a young hipster Clark Gable would be and he's got a leer on him that won't quit.
"It is magnificent to be such a willing—" added Schliemann, sidling up to him with a dreadful leer on his face.
Three More John Silence Stories | Algernon Blackwood
The captain closed one eye, and a leer of subtle cunning overspread his face.
St. Martin's Summer | Rafael SabatiniYezid grinned more savagely than ever; and Mary closed her eyes that she might not see his leer.
God Wills It! | William Stearns DavisAnd by the door stood Billy, watching them all like an evil spirit, with a leer of saturnine malice on his evil face.
Eric, or Little by Little | Frederic W. Farrar"A girl with that beautiful face and form need never starve," returned the old miser, with a significant leer.
They Looked and Loved | Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
British Dictionary definitions for leer
/ (lɪə) /
(intr) to give an oblique, sneering, or suggestive look or grin
such a look
Origin of leer
1Derived forms of leer
- leering, adjective, noun
- leeringly, adverb
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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