laugh on the other side of one's face en · VERB
Meanings
-
(UK, informal, intransitive) To experience discomfiture after displaying cockiness.
You'll be laughing on the other side of your face when the police find out you've been lying to them.
Socialism? Ha! ha! ha! Where’s the money to come from? Ha! ha! ha!... Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London laugh on the wrong side of its face. For the first time in their lives the comfortable were uncomfortable, the professional optimists had to admit that there was something wrong.
1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| laughed on the other side of one's face | Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| laughed on the other side of one's face | Tense=Past | lexicographic | |
| laughing on the other side of one's face | Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part | lexicographic | |
| laugh on the other side of one's mouth | alternative | lexicographic | |
| laugh on the wrong side of one's face | alternative | lexicographic | |
| laughs on the other side of one's face | Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres | lexicographic | |
| laugh out of the other side of one's mouth | US, alternative | lexicographic | |
| laugh out of the other side of one's face | alternative | lexicographic | |
| laugh out of the wrong side of one's face | alternative | lexicographic | |
| laugh out of the wrong side of one's mouth | alternative | lexicographic | |
| laugh on the wrong side of one's mouth | alternative | lexicographic |
Relateds
have the last laugh · he who laughs last laughs best · talk · speak out of both sides of one's mouth
Translations (5)
fr faire moins le malin (Translations) · lv pēc lieliem smiekliem nāk gaužas asaras (Translations) · ga gáire Sheáin dóite a dhéanamh (Translations) · fi hymy hyytyy (Translations) · pl but see wstydzić się (Translations)