Put up good-humoredly with adversity, with good humor, as in It's no fun being sick for the holidays, but you might as well grin and bear it. Also put as grin and abide in the 19th century, this expression became so well known that Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911) made a pun on it in his poem, “The Firm of Grin and Barrett”: “Never yet was any panic Scared the firm of Grin and Barrett.”