Meaning of Mona Lisan | Babel Free

Definitions

Resembling or characteristic of the Mona Lisa.

Examples

“On such occasions Tina Lerner’s smile is inscrutable—thoroughly Mona Lisan.”

“Many explanatory pages have been written on the meaning of this famous painting, and, provoked by its indefinable charm, its elusive suggestion, many an art student has brought the full power of his critical acumen to the task of finding suitable words for the description of the picture’s strange appeal. Each attempt has failed and each writer has dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the qualities of the Mona Lisan smile.”

“Of course the New York man would not say just what anniversary of his birthday he was celebrating. Some long range guesses were ventured by Mr. White’s party, but each guess was met with that Mona Lisan smile that Everyman takes on when he does not care to explain.”

“They greet the boys every morning, smiling with Mona Lisan smiles.”

“But always, at the end of their discussions, his wife’s Mona Lisan smile seemed like a red-hot iron ever hovering to brand him with the scarlet letter of opportunism.”

“My dear, if I should say your eyes / Are bright as Rigel in the skies; / If I should say your lustrous hair / Is glorious more than high Altair / And that your simple, happy smile / Is of the Mona Lisan style; / Or that your graceful ruby lips / E’en Trojan Helen’s do eclipse; / And tell you, too—not just to please— / You’re fairer than the Naiades; / Said I such things, by ardor fanned, / I do not think you’d understand.”

““Do swear if you like, my dear man,” she said with that faint elusive smile so characteristic of her, which those who admired her called Mona Lisan and those who did not, sly.”

“She sat with a Mona Lisan smile, purring inaudibly and savoring the spicy future that had opened for them.”

“She was silently forming thoughts behind that Mona Lisan mask, and now she put them into speech.”

“You would never think, till you looked back, we had travelled thirteen terrible miles up a narrow, gravelly, tortuous track, while the world fell away in sheeted green and hills became Mona Lisan smiles of multiple, fantastic mien;”

“Their smile is human, and for some queer reason / It is at once High Church and Mona Lisan.”

“Historians may seek the reason / For that smile called Mona Lisan, / But I should think that any fool / Could guess: her kids went back to school!”

“What matter if their eyes were mischievous, moronic or Mona Lisan.”

“Grieving this day at the death of a gentle and charming lady, talented, thoughtful, kind, public-minded, possessing a Mona-Lisan smile, in the prime of her life, leaving a fine and wholesome family desolate.”

“Horatio’s smile, for one moment, was Mona Lisan.”

“Did I detect a Mona Lisan smile?”

““No kidding, swear. He also said that you have a Mona Lison^([sic]) smile.” “Mona Lisan? Oh! I just don’t know how people get all these things into their heads.””

“Nature and circumstance had long ago pressed a Mona Lisan mystery on his face.”

“Her smile was Mona Lisan.”

“The monochromatic dark suit, the conservative tie, the silk handkerchief in the vest pocket, the Mona Lisan smile, the coat draped capelike over the shoulders speak of him not only as a successful member of the working bourgeoisie, but also as the holder of important spiritual and aesthetic values.”

“Those proverbial powers-that-be in television are trying to accomplish what one would think impossible: to make the picture irrelevant to television instead of its raison d’etre. It’s a little—OK, just a little—like slapping a copyright notice along the bottom of the Mona Lisa. Right: Little TV fare could reasonably be termed Mona Lisan. But trashing up the screen with typographical and animated junk is a slap in the viewer’s face and a sign of intense disrespect for the medium itself.”

“[…]whenever he happened to see “a Mona Lisan smile”[…]Mostly we consider this woman no other than his beloved, as a result of which some sort of a Mona Lisan smile flickers on our faces.”

“Sleeping or awake, her facial expression carried an enchanting smile...a hint of Mona Lisan mystery.”

““Sand’s smile at this juncture: Mona Lisan”.”

CEFR level