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outface
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
Verb
outface (third-person singular simple present outfaces, present participle outfacing, simple past and past participle outfaced)
- (transitive) To disconcert someone with an unblinking face-to-face confrontation; to stare down; to withsay
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:
- Thou maiſt I warrant, we ſhall haue old ſwearing / That they did giue the Rings away to men, / But weele out-face them, and out-ſweare them too, [...]
- c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii], page 187, column 2:
- Weele haue a ſwaſhing and marſhall outſide, / As manie other manniſh cowards haue, / That doe outface it with their ſemblances.
- (transitive) To boldly confront a situation.
- 1906, Violet Hunt, The Workaday Woman, page 1:
- Quiet people too, for I think that about this time a sort of remorseful tenderness comes over the bullies and the nagsters, so that they go about gently and deprecatingly, hoping by one day's record sweetness to outface the year's blusterings.
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