Word.ws English Dictionary

whiteface

whiteface noun: makeup that makes the face appear white.

Noun

whiteface (countable and uncountable, plural whitefaces)

  1. (uncountable) Makeup that makes the face appear white.
    • Whiteface is sometimes worn by clowns and mimes, or in the Gothic subculture.
  2. (countable) Any bird of the genus Aphelocephala.
  3. A Hereford cow.
  4. (countable) Any dragonfly of the genus Leucorrhinia.
  5. (countable, slang) A person of European descent. (See usage notes.)
    • Craig has gotten himself entree into a dangerous Chinatown card game, where he is playing the role of the malleable whiteface, the unlucky Irishman known as Mickey in order to infiltrate the drug-dealing operations of Asian gang members.2007 December 10, Janet Maslin, “Cop's Wife Spiraling Out of Control in Chicago”, in New York Times
  6. (countable) A traditional clown who ranks above the auguste.

Synonyms of whiteface

Forms of whiteface

pluralwhitefaces

Origin of whiteface

From white + face.

Questions about whiteface

What does whiteface mean?
Whiteface means makeup that makes the face appear white.
What part of speech is whiteface?
Whiteface is a noun.
What is the plural of whiteface?
The plural of whiteface is whitefaces.

Words near whiteface in the dictionary

  1. whited sepulchre
  2. whited sepulchres
  3. whited up
  4. whitedamp
  5. Whiteds
  6. whiteface
  7. whitefaced
  8. whitefaces
  9. whitefella
  10. whitefellas
  11. whitefeller

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whiteface (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-whiteface.ogg.

Cite this entry: “whiteface.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whiteface. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.