Source: Merriam-Webster — "lose face" / "save face"
- Title: lose face; save face (Merriam-Webster.com dictionary entries)
- Publication: Merriam-Webster
- URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lose face ; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/save face
- Type: secondary (major English dictionary); stance neutral
- Accessed: 2026-09-03
Extract
- Merriam-Webster carries a headword entry for "lose face" — defined "to lose other people's respect" — and a separate entry for "save face" — defined "to avoid having other people lose respect for oneself."
- Confirms both idioms are established, dictionary-adopted English phrases (unlike the underlying Chinese word mianzi itself, which has no English-dictionary entry — see the word page's Dictionary adoption section).
- No first-known-use date or etymology note was visible in this project's fetch of either entry — a gap, unlike Merriam-Webster's entries for several other words on file (e.g. hygge, wabi-sabi, schadenfreude), which do carry first-use dates.
Gaps
- No etymology or first-use date obtained from Merriam-Webster directly — the word page instead relies on phrasesorguk-lose-face-save-face.md, asianreviewofbooks-keevak-2022-on-saving-face.md, and oed-face-idioms-reported.md for dating, which disagree with each other (see word page).
- Merriam-Webster has no entry at all for "mianzi" or "lian" as English words — not separately confirmed by direct fetch this session, but consistent with the English Wiktionary check in wiktionary-mianzi.md's companion check (see word page Dictionary-adoption section).