Thanks, Jack.
I was trying to avoid rewriting it as frowned since the above is really just one example of the kinds of things that come up all the time. I see "he knitted his brow" and "she furrowed her brow" quite a bit as alternatives to frowning, at least from writers on this site. Since I do use them to minimize repetition, I tend to think of frowning, furrowing one's brow, and kitting one's brow as almost interchangeable (there are some minor differences in terms of definition and usage, so I only use the ones appropriate to a given context).
Referring back to my discussion with Kdot, earlier: in a moment of shock for the POV character, one could write (this example is for the purpose of this discussion only, not something real):
a) he shot his eyebrows up (not good)
b) his eyebrows shot up (better but really only works when the action is involuntary)
c) he raised his eyebrows (imprecise without context since it doesn't reflect the speed at which the eyebrows went up)
d) his eyebrows to his hairline, which I could see using in an example like the one below:
When the aircraft engine exploded, Romano jumped in his seat, held down only by his safety belt, his eyebrows to (or at) his hairline. In this example, the words to/at his hairline also don't convey the speed at which the eyebrows went up; once again, context is necessary, which is fine since it's right there in the example sentence.
That being said, I probably wouldn't use alternative c for the example sentence since Romano merely raising his eyebrows seems to dampen just how frightening the event is (e.g., engine explodes, he jumps in his seat, he raises his eyebrows, then goes back to reading). Raising one's eyebrows in an emergency like this one is how Spock might react, but not an ordinary human, IMO).
