COUNTENANCE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Countenance

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/kˈaʊntənəns/ Listen

noun

Countenance n.

1.

Appearance or expression of the face; look; aspect; mien. "So spake the Son, and into terror changed His countenance."

2.

The face; the features. "In countenance somewhat doth resemble you."

3.

Approving or encouraging aspect of face; hence, favor, good will, support; aid; encouragement. "Thou hast made him... glad with thy countenance." "This is the magistrate's peculiar province, to give countenance to piety and virtue, and to rebuke vice."

4.

Superficial appearance; show; pretense. (Obs.) "The election being done, he made countenance of great discontent thereat."

In countenance, in an assured condition or aspect; free from shame or dismay. "It puts the learned in countenance, and gives them a place among the fashionable part of mankind."

Out of countenance, not bold or assured; confounded; abashed. "Their best friends were out of countenance, because they found that the imputations... were well grounded."

To keep the countenance, to preserve a composed or natural look, undisturbed by passion or emotion.

verb

Countenance v. t. (past & past part. countenanced; pres. part. countenancing)

1.

To encourage; to favor; to approve; to aid; to abet. "This conceit, though countenanced by learned men, is not made out either by experience or reason." "Error supports custom, custom countenances error."

2.

To make a show of; to pretend. (Obs.) "Which to these ladies love did countenance."

See images of 'Countenance'

Etymology of 'Countenance'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Countenance" Quotes from Famous Books

... and sad fear in which I had found her on Sunday, and was exceedingly busy in organizing a corps of assistant nurses, women who had had some training, and were able to provide a practical outfit of nursing requisites. She had the countenance of the Army Medical authorities, but her nursing corps was to ...

— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... intense dread of doing anything that everybody else does not do, or omitting to do anything that everybody else does. This of course does amount to a sort of working or rule-of-thumb conscience; but it means that you will do anything, good or bad, provided you get enough people to keep you in countenance by doing it also. It is the sort of conscience that makes it possible to keep order on a pirate ship, or in a troop of brigands. It may be said that in the last analysis there is no other sort of honor ...

— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw

... by the Conquest. Except for the ungainly black he wore—excepting, too, his character—he might have been a peon, or still the servant he once had been. But the homely, heavy features of his round head did not, in any sense, repel. On the contrary, the countenance was frank, though yet inscrutable. The piercing black eyes were good eyes, and indomitable, like his muscled jaw. The flat, square forehead made one aware of intellect, and of force. So short and thick, he looked a sluggish man, but it was the phlegm of a rock, the calm ...

— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... is! and the thing is a singular one for a mother to be toward her daughter. If ever I saw PLOT written all over an expressive countenance,—but no more of this! Dear Colonel Ferrers, how ...

— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards

... resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell convulsively, and on ...

— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance

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