losing face

Verb

lose face (third-person singular simple present loses face, present participle losing face, simple past and past participle lost face)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To lose the respect of others; to be humiliated or experience public disgrace.
   • "The Chengtu revolutionaries were fantastically colourful in the Szechwanese manner—they costumed themselves as heroes of the stage and their energies were chiefly occupied in tying ropes across the main streets so that when Imperial officials rode by in their litters they would have to get down...1942 March, “Notes and News: Monument to a Stillborn Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 88