Idiom
lose face
Meaning
To lose the respect of others; to be humiliated or experience public disgrace.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He did not want to lose face in front of his friends.”
“The politician tried to hide his mistake to avoid losing face during the public debate.”
“By admitting his failure so publicly, the manager risked losing face among his colleagues and damaging his professional reputation permanently.”
Examples
simple
“He did not want to lose face in front of his friends.”
contextual
“The politician tried to hide his mistake to avoid losing face during the public debate.”
complex
“By admitting his failure so publicly, the manager risked losing face among his colleagues and damaging his professional reputation permanently.”
Origin
Calque from Chinese 丟臉／丢脸 (diūliǎn) or 丟面子／丢面子 (diū miànzi), both literally “lose face”.
Key words
Related idioms
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