crack a smile

crack a smile idiom
Smile, as in Betty was a very serious person; she rarely cracked a smile. This colloquialism transfers crack in the sense of “break” to breaking a serious facial expression into a smile.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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