😏 Dry humor 😬 Twisted expression

wryness

7.4

A crooked look that shows quiet amusement or mild annoyance

noun
/ˈraɪnəs/

: mueca

She raised an eyebrow in wryness when she heard the ridiculous excuse.

Examples

The movie's humor was enhanced by the wryness of the main character's expressions.
I came to find her face, its wryness pleasing.

Fiction book (1997)
His wryness gave him a unique charm that always amused his friends.

Synonyms

grimace

vswryness

18 5.3

A twisted face that shows pain, disgust, or forced amusement

expresses irony or mild annoyance rather than pain or disgust

wry face

vswryness

1 6.1

A twisted look that shows dislike, annoyance, or slight amusement

expresses irony or mild amusement rather than open disdain

Antonyms

straight face

34 3.9

A face that shows no feeling, often to avoid laughing

How Wry

to grimace

29 4.4

sneer

9 5.5

wryness

7.4

smirk

33 4.2

Surface Forms

wryness singular

wrynesses plural

Morphology

wryness = wry (transparent) = wry + ness

A direct nominalization of the facial/expressive sense of 'wry' using the productive suffix '-ness'.

Etymology

Wryness comes from the short word wry, which once meant 'twist' and is like the familiar word wring. So a 'wry' face is a small twisted expression that shows irony, mild amusement, or annoyance.