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set one's face against



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Idioms and Phrases

Strongly disapprove, as in Her parents set their faces against her eloping . The term set one's face has been used in the sense of “assume a fixed facial expression” since the mid-1500s.
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

There was no gainsaying a lad like Pierre Laurens; it would have been much like resisting the entreaties of a girl friend, to set one's face against that which he desired, and I meekly obeyed him, leaving in the loft the prisoner who looked fairly well contented with the situation, and the jailor who appeared to be suffering from confinement.

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Some English servants who have married in Spain set the example of keeping their infants clean, and, therefore, healthy, from the first, and, seeing the difference in the appearance of the children, a few Spanish women have followed suit; but it requires a good deal of courage to break away from old traditions and set one's face against the sacred superstitions of ages—and the mother-in-law!

From

To battle with the tempest,—to laugh at the wrath of waters,—to set one's face against the wild wind,—to sport with the elements as though they were children or serfs,—this is the joy of manhood!

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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.

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