lose face | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic,intransitive)To lose therespectof others; to behumiliatedor experience publicdisgrace.1942March, “Notes and News: Monument to a Stillborn Railway”, inRailway Magazine, page88:"The Chengtu revolutionaries were fantastically colourful in the Szechwanese manner—they costumed themselves as heroes of the stage and their energies were chiefly occupied in tying ropes across the main streets so that when Imperial officials rode by in their litters they would have to get down and crawl under,losing face.1986, John Shelby Spong,Beyond Moralism: A Contemporary View of the Ten Commandments‎[1], HarperCollins, published2000,→ISBN:Ahithophel, Absalom's chief counsel, hanged himself when helost faceafter his advice was rejected.1996March 15, Michael Evans, “China offensive cannot be ruled out, experts say”, inThe Times‎[2], number65,528,→ISSN,→OCLC, Overseas News,page14, column 7:The intelligence sources said the Chinese would not want tolose face. One source said, however: "The show of military muscle has provoked an international reaction and that may be enough face saved."2011, Mel Robbins,Stop Saying You're Fine: Discover a More Powerful You, Crown Archetype, published2011,→ISBN,page221:When you start to feel unmotivated, you will look for ways to weasel out of your commitments. We all do it. If there's a stealth way to back out, without everlosing face, you will do it without hesitation.2012, Sharon Pincott,Battle for the President's Elephants: Life, Lunacy and Elation in the African Bush, Jacana Media, published2012,→ISBN,page97:He had arranged for one of his managers to be present in the office with us, so I should have realised immediately that there was little chance of him backing down since that would have meantlosing facein front of a subordinate.

Examples:

EN: I'm not going to make you lose face.
ES: No voy a dejar que salgáis malparados.
EN: We're going to lose face to our ancestors... if we let such a rude man leave like that.
ES: Deshonraremos a nuestros antepasados... si dejamos que un maleducado como ése se vaya de este modo.
EN: They do shameful thing, lose face, then kill self.
ES: Si hacen algo vergonzoso, se humillan y después se matan.
EN: They lose face.
ES: -Se humillarán.
EN: - Better for Oriental to lose life than to lose face.
ES: Es mejor para un oriental perder la vida que el prestigio.
EN: Don't make me lose face, let me take her home
ES: No me hagas quedar mal, déjame que la lleve a casa
EN: Taking me outside might cause you to lose face.
ES: Andar conmigo por ahí podría hacer que te desprestigiaras.
EN: You can lose face in front of me, but don't let the first mate and the others see it.
ES: Puedes mostrar debilidad ante mí, pero no dejes que los demás lo vean.
EN: Tell the cops and I lose face.
ES: - Si avisa a la policía, me humillará.
EN: We'll lose face if we do not expand our business
ES: Nos quedaremos atrás si no crecemos.
EN: Don't make me lose face.
ES: Hazme quedar bien con él.
EN: The French Communist Party will lose face and we will have accomplished our mission.
ES: El Partido Comunista Francés perderá la cara y habremos cumplido nuestra misión.
EN: Facing a firing squad, that's an honorable thing, but being punished like this makes them lose face.
ES: Enfrentarse a un pelotón de fusilamiento es honorable, pero este castigo que están sufriendo es una vergüenza para ellos.
EN: I wouldn't want you to lose face.
ES: No quiero que pases vergüenza.
EN: Causing us to lose face. Because of your stupidity.
ES: Tendremos muchos problemas por culpa de su estupidez.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).