Word.ws English Dictionary

putting a brave face on

putting a brave face on is the present participle and gerund of put a brave face on.

Meaning of put a brave face on

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

Questions about putting a brave face on

What is putting a brave face on the present participle and gerund of?
Putting a brave face on is the present participle and gerund of put a brave face on.

Words near putting a brave face on in the dictionary

  1. puttiless
  2. puttin'
  3. putting
  4. putting a band-aid on a bullet wound
  5. putting a block on
  6. putting a brave face on
  7. putting a bug in someone's ear
  8. putting a cork in it
  9. putting a crimp in
  10. putting a damper on
  11. putting a dent in the universe

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: putting a brave face on (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “putting a brave face on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/putting_a_brave_face_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.