Word.ws English Dictionary

straight-face tests

straight-face tests is the plural of straight-face test.

Meaning of straight-face test

Noun

straight-face test (plural straight-face tests)

  1. (idiomatic) A tongue-in-cheek test of the merits of an argument which asks whether it can be made with a straight face (without laughing).
    • As such, her [Nancy Pelosi's] effort to distance herself from the CIA's conceit on torture should not be surprising or cause for outrage. To presume the benefit of the doubt with the CIA after countless destroyed interrogation tapes doesn't even pass the straight face test.2009 June 26, John Wellington Ennis, “Picking on Pelosi”, in HuffPost, archived from the original on 19 Apr 2023

Questions about straight-face tests

What is straight-face tests the plural of?
Straight-face tests is the plural of straight-face test.

Words near straight-face tests in the dictionary

  1. straight-edger
  2. straight-edgers
  3. straight-eight
  4. straight-eights
  5. straight-face test
  6. straight-face tests
  7. straight-faced
  8. straight-forward
  9. straight-from-the-shoulder
  10. straight-hearted
  11. straight-jacket

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: straight-face tests (page history and authors); straight-face test (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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