Dictionary

outface en · VERB

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *úd Proto-Germanic *ūt Proto-Germanic *ūt- Old English ūt- Middle English ut- English out- Latin faciēs Late Latin facia Old French facebor. Middle English face English face English outface From out- + face.

Meanings

1. (transitive) To disconcert someone with an unblinking face-to-face confrontation; to stare down; to withsay
   • 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. 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]:
   • Weele haue a ſwaſhing and marſhall outſide, / As manie other manniſh cowards haue, / That doe outface it with their ſemblances. 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:
2. (transitive) To boldly confront a situation.
   • 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. 1906, Violet Hunt, The Workaday Woman, page 1:

Forms