He cultivated to perfection the sneer which he used like an oyster-knife, inserting it into the shell of his victim, exposing him with a quick-turn of the wrist, and finally flipping him over and inviting his audience to discard him as tainted and inedible.

-Annan, Noe«  l Gilroy, Baron
  On the critic F R Leavis. English Intellectuals Between the World Wars.

Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer.

-Rochdale
^18  Of Edward Gibbon. Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto 3, stanza107.

I've an irritating chuckle, I've a celebrated sneer, I've an entertaining snigger, I've a fascinating leer. To everybody's prejudice I know a thing or two; I can tell a woman's age in half a minuteöand I do. But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can, Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man!

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
  Gama's song, Princess Ida, act1.

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

-Pope, Alexander
  Of Addison.'An Epistle to DrArbuthnot', l.201^4.