Other forms: frowned, frowning, frowns
A frown is what your face does when your eyebrows pull down and squeeze together. You frown at a bill that is bigger than you expected, at handwriting you cannot read, at a child reaching for the hot oven.
It works as a verb and as a noun: he frowned, she wore a small frown. You frown AT a person or a thing. The other use catches learners out — to frown on or upon something is to disapprove of it, and it belongs to rules and customs rather than faces: trainers are frowned upon at that restaurant, the school frowns on phones in class. A frown is not proof of anger. Hard concentration produces the same face, and so does trying to read a sign from too far away.
1verbfrownTo pull your eyebrows together and down, showing worry, disapproval or hard thinking.
“He frowned at the instructions, then turned the page over to check the other side.”
synonyms: scowl
2nounexpressionThe expression made by pulling the eyebrows together.
“A small frown appeared between her eyebrows.”
3verbdisapproveTo disapprove of something, as a matter of rules or custom. Used as frown on or frown upon.
“Chewing gum is frowned upon during lessons.”
frown is a facial expression.
Frown comes from Middle English froun, a threatening look, and the verb frounen, to frown. The older noun carried a second picture with it: the lowering of the clouds before bad weather. A sky going dark and a face going dark were the same word.
Middle English
frown
English, today
frown
Built from
From Middle English frown, froun (“a threatening appearance; lowering of the clouds”), from frounen (“to frown”). See below.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Everyday Verbs, Ways of Looking