Did you know?
The word face may be a pretty generic word, but it has several high-flown synonyms. Physiognomy, for instance, refers to facial features thought to reveal qualities of temperament or character. "I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed," Emily Brontë writes in Wuthering Heights. Countenance is often used to refer to the face as an indication of mood or emotion, as Bram Stoker types in Dracula: "Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance." Visage can refer to the face of a person or an animal, and it can also refer to the appearance of nonliving things, as in "the dirty visage of the old abandoned factory."
Examples of visage in a Sentence
Kate Erbland, IndieWire, 9 July 2024
To be fair, in the Viking image the landform really does look like a face, an eerie visage reminiscent of Easter Island moai or the Great Sphinx in Egypt.
—Phil Plait, Scientific American, 28 June 2024
That didn’t seem to make sense, because one coin appeared to bear the visage of a ruler who wouldn’t have been in power at that time.
—Paul Smaglik, Discover Magazine, 26 June 2024
When Walpole died in 1797, his Roman bust changed hands several times, with some owners mistaking the visage for Alexander the Great.
—Julia Binswanger, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for visage 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'visage.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near visage
Cite this Entry
“Visage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visage. Accessed 15 Jul. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
visage
noun
Share