loss of face
Loss of the respect of others, humiliation, public disgrace.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“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.”
Derived from the earlier verbal phrase *lose face*. No specific dates or named entities are recorded for the noun phrase's independent development.
- 01
bash someone's face in
To beat someone violently.
- 02
blow up in one's face
To fail disastrously.
- 03
boat
[Cockney slang]face
- 04
break someone's face
To beat up someone violently.
- 05
butter face
Alternative form of butterface.
- 06
close the face
To turn the face of the bat inwards, in order to hit the ball to the leg side.
- 07
cut off one's nose to spite one's face
To harm oneself as a result of attempting to harm an adversary.
- 08
dead loss
An absolute or total loss.
Last updated August 10, 2026