The poor lass was sitting bemoaning herself - "Were it nae for thy girning face, I would knock the big, winnow the corn, and grun the meal."1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume II, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 167:
At seventy-five or eighty I will be like a child myself, frail and cantankerous, a girning, burdensome old devil.1999, Jessica Stirling, The Wind from the Hills, St Martin's Press:
And Jim was just girning all the time. I telled him to shut it.2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 107:
3
To make elaborate unnatural and distorted faces as a form of amusement or in a girning competition.
girn
noun
Etymology From Middle English gyrnen, a metathesised form of grinnen, grennen. More at grin.
1
A vocalization similar to a cat's purring.
A different vocalization, a girn, simiular to a cat's purring, was observed in infants reunited with their mothers...2002, Richard J. Davidson, editor, Handbook of Affective Sciences, Oxford: University Press, page 569: