frown
English

A frowning man in Albrecht Dürer's painting Bildnis eines unbekannten Mannes (1521)
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /fɹaʊn/
Audio (GA) (file) - Rhymes: -aʊn
Etymology 1
From Middle English frown, froun (“a threatening appearance; lowering of the clouds”), from frounen (“to frown”). See below.
Noun
frown (plural frowns)
- A facial expression in which the eyebrows are brought together, and the forehead is wrinkled, usually indicating displeasure, sadness or worry, or less often confusion or concentration.
- A facial expression in which the corners of the mouth are pointed down.
Derived terms
Translations
facial expression
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Etymology 2
From Middle English frounen (“to frown as an expression of disapproval, displeasure, shame, fear, or jealousy”), from Old French frognier (“to frown or scowl”), from Gaulish *frognā (“nostril”), from Proto-Celtic *srognā.
Verb
frown (third-person singular simple present frowns, present participle frowning, simple past and past participle frowned)
- (intransitive) To have a frown on one's face.
- She frowned when I told her the news.
- (intransitive, figuratively) To manifest displeasure or disapprobation; to look with disfavour or threateningly.
- Noisy gossip in the library is frowned upon.
- Shakespeare
- The sky doth frown and lower upon our army.
- (transitive) To repress or repel by expressing displeasure or disapproval; to rebuke with a look.
- Let us frown the impudent fellow into silence.
- (transitive) To communicate by frowning.
- Frank frowned his displeasure with my proposal.
- 2017 June 26, Alexis Petridis, “Glastonbury 2017 verdict: Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Lorde, Stormzy and more”, in the Guardian:
- As the band paused between songs, a gust of wind blew a distinctive Worthy Farm odour in the direction of drummer/vocalist Julien Ehrich: “Wow,” he frowned, “this place smells of cow shit.”
Derived terms
Translations
to have a frown on one's face
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to look with disfavour or threateningly
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked
Welsh
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