frown

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frown upon

To show one's disapproval of something. I just know my mother frowns upon my decision to go to a state school. Please stop frowning upon my choice and support me!

frown on (something)

To disapprove or show one's disapproval of something. I just know my mother frowns on my decision to go to a state school. If people frown on such relationships, they're just living in the past.

See also: frown, on

frown at someone or something

to scowl at someone or something. Please don't frown at me. I didn't do anything. Frank frowned at the dog and gave it a kick.

frown on someone or something

to disapprove of someone or something; to show displeasure or disapproval of someone or something. The Internal Revenue Service frowns on tax cheaters. Aunt Clara always seemed to frown on my cousin for some reason.

See also: frown, on

frown on

Regard with disapproval or distaste, as in Pat frowns on bad language. this idiom transfers the disapproving facial expression to the thought it expresses. [Late 1500s]

See also: frown, on

frown on

or frown upon

To disapprove of something: The administration frowns on late submissions of the required forms. My parents frown upon loud music.

See also: frown, on

References in periodicals archive ?

After the decisive vote on the Rome Statute, our founding treaty, there is some kind of explosion, an enormous outpouring of emotions, of relief among those present, unparalleled for such a conference: screams, stamping, exultation without end, tears of joy and relief; hard-baked delegates and journalists who have frowningly watched the entire conference hug each other in a state of euphoria.

The mens rea of the crime of aggression

The pianist finished his golden oldie, peeping al us frowningly all along, and then exasperatedly ran off to the kitchen.

In musica bohemica ET slovaca the reception of John Cage's music in the Czech lands and Slovakia

And it is here, without minders or bodyguards, where the real Bernie Ecclestone exists - far removed from the frowningly stern-faced and rarely smiling figure, often featured so sullenly on TV's grid shots, bestriding F1 in his kingly role.

Formula Bernie

I picked my nose in the first film when I was in hospital,' he frowningly reminded her.

'Dalziel and Pascoe' dazzle loyal Brum fans

Chapels dominated in every village, frowningly facing each other as fresh young rival denominations sprouted.

GOOD EVAN IT'S WALES' REDEEMER

Writing of Fauve landscapes of the Mediterranean south, he remarks, frowningly, that they 'performed a double dissimulation: politics posed as art, which in turn posed as the direct rendition of nature' (p.