Source: Wiktionary — "臉" / "脸" (liǎn)

Title: 臉 (Wiktionary Chinese-language entry, liǎn; traditional form — the entry for simplified 脸 redirects here)
Publication: Wiktionary (en.wiktionary.org)
URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/臉 (traditional 臉; simplified 脸 at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/脸 redirects to it)
Type: tertiary (crowd-sourced dictionary); stance neutral
Accessed: 2026-09-03

Extract

Etymology: derived from Proto-Sino-Tibetan *s-gram ("cheek; face"), cognate with Tibetan terms for "cheek"/"cheekbone" — a deeper, reconstructed root distinct from 面子's transparent Mandarin-internal 面+子 compound (see wiktionary-mianzi.md).
Mandarin pronunciation: liǎn (third tone); a secondary reading jiǎn is noted for the "shangkouzi" pronunciation style.
Senses given: (1) a literary sense, "cheek"; (2) the primary sense, "face" (classifier 張/张), e.g. "to wash one's face," "smile on one's face"; (3) a derived sense, "facial expression; complexion"; (4) a figurative sense, "front part of something"; (5) a figurative social/cultural sense — "reputation; face; image," illustrated by 丟臉/丢脸 ("to lose face; to bring shame to oneself") and by an example glossed "to be too embarrassed to face anybody."
The entry's thesaurus/related-terms section lists 面子 (miànzi) and 臉面 (liǎnmiàn) as related but distinct ways of expressing reputation/social standing.

Tertiary crowd-sourced source; no primary Chinese dictionary consulted this session (a stated gap).
Does not itself resolve how liǎn's reputation sense differs in practice from mianzi's — see journalofsociology-qi-2011-face-chinese-concept-global-sociology.md, which reports Hu (1944)'s classic distinction (lian as moral standing vs. mianzi as social prestige) and several later scholars' complications of it.