Ordinarily followed by an awkward, but mercifully abortive, lunge for the second cheek, and then a nervous silence.

That derision turned rapidly to nervous silence when it became clear that the policy was enormously popular.

Spectators who had turned out to watch rather than protest kept a nervous silence.

It's all there: the jittery self-effacement, the nervous smile, the embarrassment at all this fuss.

Despite the hefty penalty, he left the dock with a nervous smile and a look of relief.

Now, on the final day, he walked to the pitch, head bowed, a nervous smile on his lips, to one or two boos, then silence.

He wears a slightly nervous smile, to my eye.

Others offer a nervous smile and hurry past.

In that tournament they performed in a higher orbit until nervous tension and the loss of all their leading fly-halves stifled them.

He did not show much sign of nervous tension on the track either.

Games are electrified by the nervous tension that provokes players into great deeds or horrible blunders.

I'll be nervous, but it's a positive nervous tension.

It's been suggested that maybe nervous tension can create cramp.

She's developed a nervous tic and can't stop touching her face and neck.

It's a little unsettling at first, like a nervous tic.

At one time it had become an obsession, he said; practically a nervous tic.

My on-screen avatar had a distracting nervous tic, occasionally twisted into impossible positions and consistently lagged a fraction of a second behind my body movements.

Every second phrase was 'you know', a nervous tic that had to be methodically excised.

So when he tried, for the first time in six years, he was surprised to find that it felt like a nervous tick, before finally creasing into a broad smile.

They are nervous ticks that come and go.

The nervous ticks he displayed, constantly re-strapping his pads and re-marking his guard, gave an indication of the enormous pressure he put on himself to succeed.

Of course most of the greats have been afflicted by nervous ticks that don't quite tally.

It's like getting rid of a nervous twitch.

I still have a nervous twitch, from being followed 24 hours a day.

Unexamined concerns can mushroom in size, giving us nervous twitches and nightmares.

Yes, there were a few nervous twitches as the match drew to its close - as compelling and fraught a final 10 minutes as you could ever imagine.

Yet while institutional investors seem solid enough, retail ones have become understandably nervous.

Staff at the bank, however, were understandably nervous about their own prospects.

They offered you another hotel, which they were entitled to do, but you were feeling understandably nervous about travelling, and declined.

Workers are understandably nervous about the safety of the pensions that they have spent a lifetime building up.

With nine million workers on furlough and millions of others working in sectors that are struggling, mortgage companies are understandably nervous to lend money.

Alone, except for a visibly nervous aquarium person armed with a stick the size of a school ruler.

He was visibly nervous as he started the classically cautionary tale of premature success.

Nearly 100 people turn up, their wormy, mangy, jumpy and possibly rabid animals in tow, and the vets are visibly nervous.

According to observers of the proceedings, he seemed visibly nervous and shaken.

Shore, who was visibly nervous before the game about the reception he would receive from the crowd, was cheered and supported when he rushed with the puck.