[f. LEER v.] A side glance; a look or roll of the eye expressive of slyness, malignity, immodest desire, etc.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., I. iii. 50. Shee discourses: shee carues: she giues the leere of inuitation.
1667. Milton, P. L., IV. 503. Aside the Devil turnd For envie, yet with jealous leer maligne Ey’d them askance.
1681. Otway, Soldier’s Fort., III. i. Wks. 1728, I. 372. What a Hang-dog Leer was that.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. ii. The fellow has a roguish leer with him, which I don’t like by any means.
1735. Pope, Prol. Sat., 201. Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer.
1743. Fielding, J. Wild, III. vii. She accompanied these words with … so wanton a leer, that [etc.].
1851. Layard, Pop. Acc. Discov. Nineveh, xiii. 353. Old Gouriel, the Kiayah, still rejoicing in his drunken leer, was there to receive us.
1863. Whyte-Melville, Gladiators, I. 143. A short, square, beetle-browed man, with a villanous leer.
