Word.ws English Dictionary

put a brave face on

put a brave face on verb: to present oneself as calm, confident, or untroubled in the face of difficulty, disappointment, fear or adversity.

Verb

put a brave face on (third-person singular simple present puts a brave face on, present participle putting a brave face on, simple past and past participle put a brave face on)

  1. (idiomatic) To present oneself as calm, confident, or untroubled in the face of difficulty, disappointment, fear or adversity.
    • Nevertheless De Comines put a brave face on the matter, and told the council that he had already received information of the league and had sent dispatches to his master on the subject. 'After dinner,' continues De Comines, […]2022 December 10, John Addington Symonds, The Renaissance in Italy (Complete 7 Volumes), DigiCat

Synonyms of put a brave face on

Forms of put a brave face on

third-person singular presentputs a brave face on
present participleputting a brave face on
past participleput a brave face on
pastput a brave face on

Questions about put a brave face on

What does put a brave face on mean?
Put a brave face on means to present oneself as calm, confident, or untroubled in the face of difficulty, disappointment, fear or adversity.
What part of speech is put a brave face on?
Put a brave face on is a verb.
What is the past tense of put a brave face on?
The past tense of put a brave face on is put a brave face on.

Words near put a brave face on in the dictionary

  1. put
  2. put 'em up
  3. put a band-aid on a bullet wound
  4. put a blanket over
  5. put a block on
  6. put a brave face on
  7. put a bug in someone's ear
  8. put a civil tongue in one's head
  9. put a civil tongue in one's mouth
  10. put a cork in it
  11. put a crimp in

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put a brave face on (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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