Forms: 4–6 froun(e, (5 frownyn), 6–7 frowne, 4– frown. [ME. froune, ad. OF. froignier, frongnier (mod.F. only in the compound refrogner), of obscure origin.]
1. intr. To knit the brows, especially by way of expressing displeasure or (less frequently) concentration of thought; to look sternly. Said also of the brow. † Also (rarely), to sneer.
c. 1386. [see FROWNING ppl. a.]
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems, 17. Wiche ought of resone the devise to excuse To alle tho that wold ageyn it ffroune or musee.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 181/1. Frownyn wythe the nose, nasio.
c. 1477. Caxton, Jason, 52. He frowned in this wise & bote on his lippe a grete while.
1574. Mirr. Mag., Sabrina, xxix. When Fortune most doth smile: Then will she froune: she laughes but euen a while.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mel., III. Wks. 1856, I. 32.
| Now I defy chance. Fortunes browe hath frown’d, | |
| Even to the utmost wrinkle it can bend. |
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 106. He ended frowning, and his look denounc’d Desperate revenge.
1777. Sheridan, Sch. Scand., A Portrait, 51.
| No state has Amoret! no studied mien; | |
| She frowns no goddess, and she moves no queen. |
1858. Lytton, What Will He Do with It? II. xii. Had I been your father, I should have taken alarm, and frowned.
1872. Darwin, Emotions, ix. 223. A man who joined us, and who could not conceive what we were doing in profound silence, when asked to listen, frowned much, though not in an ill-temper.
b. Of inanimate things: To present a gloomy or threatening aspect.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 118. They saw the times to frowne and trouble to come.
1659. D. Pell, Impr. Sea, 480. And will you not bee in the like fear, when the Heavens frown above you?
1764. Goldsm., The Traveller, 85.
| And though the rocky-crested summits frown, | |
| These rocks, by custom, turn to beds of down. |
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, i. And sometimes frowned with forests of gloomy pine.
1839. Yeowell, Anc. Brit. Ch., i. (1847), 7. That wild architecture, whose gigantic stones hanging on one another, are still to be seen frowning upon the plains of Stonehenge.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), II. xv. 283. The cannon of the Prussians frowned along the rugged eminences of their left.
1868. Milman, Annals of S. Paul’s Cathedral, i. 9. A rude Saxon temple may have frowned down from the height above the Thames, where the Roman or Christian fanes had stood.
2. To express disapprobation or unfriendliness by a stern look. Const. at, on, upon. Also in indirect passive.
1576. A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 395. You are not the first vpon whom fortune hath frowned.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., I. i. 194. Her. I frowne vpon him, yet he loues me still.
1648. Gage, West Ind., iv. 13. Much were wee frowned at by the Dominicans our chiefest friends.
1709. Addison, Tatler, No. 24, ¶ 11. Frontlet not only looks serious, but frowns at him.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, xix. Montoni frowned upon him.
a. 1859. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., V. 152. That they should be … frowned upon at Kensington for not going farther.
b. attributed to inanimate objects.
1611. Shaks., Wint. T., III. iii. 6.
| The heauens with that we haue in hand, are angry, | |
| And frowne vpon’s. |
1816. Keatinge, Trav. (1817), II. 32. Robat and Sallee seem to frown at each other across this fine river, which is about as broad as the Thames below the bridges, being fortified with curtains thickly studded with towers, in tiers (the curtains) one above another.
3. quasi-trans. a. To drive or force with a frown away, back, dovm, off; also from, into (something).
1678. Dryden, All for Love, II. i. Ventidius fix’d his Eyes upon my Passage Severely, as he meant to frown me back.
1712. Sir R. Blackmore, Creation, VII.
| Despairing Wretch, he’ll frown thee from his Throne, | |
| And by his Wrath will make his Being known. |
1741. Watts, Improv. Mind, I. iii. § 2. It is a very hopeful sign in young persons, so see them curious in observing, and inquisitive in searching into the greatest part of things that occur; nor should such an enquiring temper be frowned into silence, nor be rigorously restrained, but should rather be satisfied by proper answers given to all those queries.
c. 1800. K. White, Lett. (1837), 274. The fear of singularity frowns me into the concealment of it.
1805. Byron, To Dorset, v. Peace, that reflection never frown’d away.
1806. Webster, in Scudder, Life, vi. (1882), 231. I will he neither frowned nor ridiculed into error.
1831. Lytton, Godolph., 66. You would not frown a great person like Lady Delville into affection for us.
1840. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, ii. And the cold black country seemed to frown him off.
1870. Baldw. Brown, Eccl. Truth, 261. A new order of society in which … judges [should] no more frown down the poor.
b. To enforce, express, produce, etc., by a frown.
1775. Sheridan, Rivals, Epilogue.
| The servile suitors watch her various face, | |
| She smiles preferment, or she frowns disgrace, | |
| Curtsies a pension here—there nods a place. |
1798. W. Taylor, in Monthly Rev., XXV. 518. Among us, however, the present statue of the prophet would seem to frown restraint on levity and mirth.
1871. L. Stephen, Playgr. Europe, iii. (1894), 72. In 1861 the Schreckhorn … still frowned defiance upon all comers.
Hence † Frowned ppl. a., covered with a frown; made to look frowning. Also Frowner, one who frowns.
1598. Florio, Inarcato, a frowned or scouled countenance.
1630. Brathwait, Eng. Gentlem. (1641), 138. Such … friends or acquaintance as are neither … Fawners nor Frowners.
a. 1763. Byrom, Christ among Doctors, 10. That meek old Priest, with placid Face of Joy, That Pharisaic Frowner at the Boy.
1872. Darwin, Emotions, ix. 223–4. Some persons are such habitual frowners, that the mere effort of speaking almost always causes their brows to contract.
1892. Idler, June, 590. A handful of frowners against thirty million laughers!
