Word.ws English Dictionary

putting on a brave face

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

Meaning of put on a brave face

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To behave in a brave or stoic manner.
    • [You] put on a brave face, but the inside of your mind is on overdrive and your heart is full of fear and worry. You suddenly look at the people around you and see their pain so clearly.(Can we date this quote?), Jeanine Patten-Coble, Struck by Hope: The True Story of Answering God’s Call and the Creation of Little Pink Houses of Hope, Read the Spirit Books, →ISBN

Questions about putting on a brave face

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

Words near putting on a brave face in the dictionary

  1. putting lie to
  2. putting lipstick on a pig
  3. putting new wine in old bottles
  4. putting off
  5. putting on
  6. putting on a brave face
  7. putting on a clinic
  8. putting on a pedestal
  9. putting on airs
  10. putting on frills
  11. putting on one's dancing shoes

Source and license

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