Semi-smile

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A faint smile.

    "She curled her pink lips upward in a shy semi-smile."

  2. 2
    A suppressed or forced smile.

    "He stood looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company, -- very much as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing."

Example

More examples

"She curled her pink lips upward in a shy semi-smile."

Etymology

From semi- + smile.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.