simpering

adj, noun — 2 senses

simpering

adj

1

Affected, smug, and supercilious.

Why, look at him—look at this simpering self-righteous mug!1892, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXI, in The American Claimant, New York, N.Y.: Charles L[uther] Webster & Co., →OCLC, page 214:
I know they are supposed to be amusing, and you should be tolerant, but I wanted to swing on one, any one, anything to shatter that superior, simpering composure.1926, Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises:

2 more examples

I had high hopes when I moved to Spyglass, but simpering gossip on celebrity parties seems to be the closest I've gotten so far to Dad's vocation.2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Sceptre (Hodder and Stoughton), →ISBN:
That sounds almost simpering. I hate sounding simpering, and over a trifling increase of four coppers on a gold, I definitely do not wish to sound simpering.2015, L. E. Modesitt, Jr, Madness in Solidar, →ISBN:

Derived terms: simperingly

simpering

noun

1

The act of one who simpers.

Well, but Polly attended, as I said; and there were strange simperings, and bowing, and courtesying, between them; the honest gentleman seeming not to know how to let his mistress wait upon him[…]1740, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded:

Related terms: simperer, simping

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.