different between giggle vs simper

English

Etymology

Unknown. Perhaps a frequentative based on dialectal English gig (“to creak”), from Middle English gigen (“to make a creaking sound”) +? -le. Compare Middle English gigge, gige (“a squeaking sound; a creak”), Dutch giechelen, German kichern.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /????l/
• Rhymes: -???l

Verb

giggle (third-person singular simple present giggles, present participle giggling, simple past and past participle giggled)

1. To laugh gently or in a high-pitched voice; to laugh in a silly or giddy way.

   The jokes had them giggling like little girls all evening.

Synonyms

• (laugh in a silly way): titter
• See also Thesaurus:laugh

Derived terms

• giggly

Translations

Noun

giggle (plural giggles)

1. A high-pitched, silly laugh.
2. (informal) Fun; an amusing episode.

   We put itching powder down his shirt for giggles.

   The women thought it would be quite a giggle to have a strippergram at the bride's hen party.

Synonyms

• (laugh): titter
• (amusement): amusement, fun, a joke, a laugh or laughs

Translations

English

Etymology

Origin uncertain; compare (probably from) Danish simper / semper (“coy”), German zimper (“elegant, dainty”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?mp?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?s?mp?/

• Rhymes: -?mp?(r)

Verb

simper (third-person singular simple present simpers, present participle simpering, simple past and past participle simpered)

1. (intransitive) To smile in a foolish, frivolous, self-conscious, coy, or smug manner.
   • 1892, Mark Twain, The American Claimant, ch. 21:

     Why, look at him—look at this simpering self-righteous mug!

   • 1915, Harold MacGrath, The Voice In The Fog, ch. 24:

     How the fools kotowed and simpered while I looked over their jewels and speculated upon how much I could get for them!
2. (obsolete) To glimmer; to twinkle.
   • 1633, George Herbert, The Search

     Yet can I mark how stars above / Simper and shine.

Translations

Noun

simper (plural simpers)

1. A foolish, frivolous, self-conscious, or affected smile; a smirk.
   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, Book 2, Ch. 2, "St. Edmundsbury":

     Yes, another world it was, when these black ruins, white in their new mortar and fresh chiselling, first saw the sun as walls, long ago. Gauge not, with thy dilettante compasses, with that placid dilettante simper, the Heaven's—Watchtower of our Fathers, the fallen God's—Houses, the Golgotha of true Souls departed!

   • 1972, Eric Ambler, The Levanter (2009 edition), ?ISBN, p. 158:

     He paused, and then a strange expression appeared on his lips. It was very like a simper.

Translations

See also

• smirk
• shit-eating grin

References

Anagrams

• Priems, Primes, emirps, misper, primes