Idiom
loss of face
Meaning
Loss of the respect of others, humiliation, public disgrace.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He apologized to avoid a loss of face.”
“The manager resigned quietly to prevent a loss of face after the project failed publicly.”
“The diplomat chose his words carefully, fearing that any public admission of error would result in a significant loss of face for his entire delegation.”
Examples
simple
“He apologized to avoid a loss of face.”
contextual
“The manager resigned quietly to prevent a loss of face after the project failed publicly.”
complex
“The diplomat chose his words carefully, fearing that any public admission of error would result in a significant loss of face for his entire delegation.”
Origin
Derived from the earlier verbal phrase *lose face*. No specific dates or named entities are recorded for the noun phrase's independent development.
Key words
Related idioms
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