smile at someone—(also: smile to someone) look at a person with a smile on one’s face (expressing pleasure or amusement):
- The waiter brought her a drink. “Just what the doctor ordered,” she said, smiling at him.
smile on someone—
1. (of fate, luck, etc.) be favorable to a person:
- Good fortune indeed had smiled on the child as she could easily have been placed on one of the other three chain gangs.
2. = smile at someone:
- The doctor smiled on the child, and, chucking him under the chin, told him he must hate nobody…