face-saving
Britishadjective
Explanation
Anything face-saving protects you from humiliation. Slip and fall in the school cafeteria, and you might use the face-saving tactic of pretending you did it on purpose. You know, for a joke. The concept of something being face-saving varies between cultures; what's undignified or dishonorable in one might be no big deal in another. It's all about the idea of face, or dignity in front of a social group, and the potential loss of it. In a negotiation between two countries, the winning side sometimes grants some face-saving concessions to the loser, to make their loss less humiliating or embarrassing.
Vocabulary lists containing face-saving
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Andrew Bishop’s base case remains that a face-saving compromise will be achieved by the U.S. and Iran.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
No remedies were offered to Meta, no extended antitrust analysis, no diplomatic face-saving.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 5, 2026
Eventually, it’s likely that the Justice Department finds a face-saving way to drop the inquiry and allow Warsh’s nomination to move forward, said Stifel chief Washington policy strategist Brian Gardner.
From Barron's ● Feb. 5, 2026
Brazil came up with a face-saving idea of roadmaps on deforestation and fossil fuels that would exist outside the COP.
From BBC ● Nov. 22, 2025
T. Ray needed a face-saving way to hand me over, and August was giving it to him.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
