leer

views updated May 29 2018

leer / li(ə)r/ • v. [intr.] look or gaze in an unpleasant, malicious, or lascivious way: bystanders were leering at the nude painting [as adj.] (leering) every leering eye in the room was on her. • n. an unpleasant, malicious, or lascivious look.DERIVATIVES: leer·ing·ly adv.ORIGIN: mid 16th cent. (in the general sense ‘look sideways or askance’): perhaps from obsolete leer ‘cheek,’ from Old English hlēor, as though the sense were ‘to glance over one's cheek.’

The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English

leer

views updated Jun 08 2018

leer look askance (now only with a sly or malign expression). XVI. Early leare, le(e)re, poss. f. leer sb. cheek (OE. hlēor), as if ‘to look over the cheek’.
Hence sb. XVI.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology T. F. HOAD

Leer

views updated May 29 2018

Leer

of boys—Lipton, 1970.

Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms

leer

views updated May 21 2018

leer (Ger.). Empty; applied to open str. of vn., etc.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE

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