girn

Etymology

Metathesized form of grin.

verb

1. (dialectal) To grimace; to snarl.
   At seventy-five or eighty I will be like a child myself, frail and cantankerous, a girning, burdensome old devil. 1999, Jessica Stirling, The Wind from the Hills, St Martin's Press
2. (Scotland, Northern England) To whinge, moan, complain.
   And Jim was just girning all the time. I telled him to shut it. 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, Penguin, published 2009, page 107
3. (intransitive) To make elaborate unnatural and distorted faces as a form of amusement or in a girning competition.

noun

1. A vocalization similar to a cat's purring.
   A different vocalization, a girn, simiular to a cat's purring, was observed in infants reunited with their mothers... 2002, Richard J. Davidson, editor, Handbook of Affective Sciences, Oxford: University Press, page 569