aftersmile
English
editEtymology
editNoun
editaftersmile (plural aftersmiles)
- A smile that follows something.
- 1861, Charles Spurgeon, “Accidents, Not Punishments”, in The New Park Street and Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit[1], volume 7, London: Passmore and Alabaster, published 1862, page 636:
- […] there were funerals as the result of a holy effort (for holy effort still we avow it to have been, and the aftersmile of God hath proved it so).
- 1893 August, Mary Baker Eddy, “The Mother’s Evening Prayer”, in Christian Science Journal, volume 11, number 5, page 193:
- No night drops down upon the troubled breast, / When heaven’s aftersmile, earth’s teardrops gain, / And mother finds her home and far-off rest.
- 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel[2], New York: Scribner, published 1957, Part 2, Chapter 21, p. 236:
- Smiling with imperturbable tenderness, Mrs. Selborne thrust out her heavy legs slowly to swell with warm ripe smack his gift of flowered green-silk garters. Wetting his thumb with sly thin aftersmile, he told.
- 1986, Kojo Laing, chapter 3, in Search Sweet Country[3], San Francisco: McSweeney’s Books, pages 33–34:
- New truths were coming to her, and she at first laughed at them, laughed at what her own head was telling her […] . Her aftersmile spread into the doubt in her eyes when her head told her that she would soon be able to carry the daylight on her back.
- A facial expression that follows a smile.
- 1992, Judith Saxton, chapter 4, in This Royal Breed,[4], New York: St. Martin’s Press, page 71:
- It made her smile, just a little one, and that was good, but the smile got switched off pretty soon and somehow that made it worse, because there was such a contrast in her face between smile and aftersmile.
Adjective
editaftersmile (not comparable)
- Following a smile.
- 1988, Herbert Gold, chapter 7, in Dreaming[5], New York: Donald I. Fine, page 102:
- The smile was gone, but the face still had an aftersmile glow on it;