Definition of "simper" []

• To smile in a silly, self-conscious, often coy manner. (verb-intransitive)
• To utter or express with a silly, self-conscious, often coy smile: simpered a lame excuse. (verb-transitive)
• A silly, self-conscious, often coy smile. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "In the morning, before I got up, Strap came into my chamber, and, finding me awake, hemmed several times, scratched his head, cast his eyes upon the ground, and, with a very foolish kind of simper upon his face gave me to understand he had something to communicate."
• "There is nothing, for the conversation has been as lead, but the smile does not subside; it only passes through the endless variations that succeed each other from the inane grin to the affected simper which is meant to be tender."
• "Still, Pan Am and even the Playboy Club look like feminist manifestos in comparison with the new Charlie's Angels remake, which pulls off the improbable trick of apparently requiring its cast to wear less and simper more than they did the first time round."