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In “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous poem, a traveller tells of a colossal statue’s “shattered visage” lying half sunk in desert sands, going on to describe its “frown / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command…” Now, Shelley could have simply chosen face over the more highfalutin synonym visage, but not only would face shatter the sonnet’s iambic pentameter, but a formal-sounding word is sometimes preferable to a basic one for all kinds of reasons, including sound, tone, or simply the cut of its jib. Physiognomy, for instance, refers to facial features thought to reveal qualities of temperament or character, as when Emily Brontë writes in Wuthering Heights, “I thought I could detect in his physiognomy a mind owning better qualities than his father ever possessed.” Countenance, meanwhile, is often used to refer to the face as an indication of mood or emotion, as in Bram Stoker’s Dracula: “Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance.” As all of these quotes attest, when it comes to wordsmithery, sometimes you’ve just got to vamp.
Examples of visage in a Sentence
Graham Bowley, New York Times, 24 Feb. 2025
The actor whose visage has, twice, had to convey the entire weight of the Holocaust looks almost unrecognizable on the tiny screen.
—Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 5 Feb. 2025
Need an agile, powerful boy with a bold, angry visage?
—Josh Max, Forbes, 23 Jan. 2025
Orlok’s mustachioed visage could be seen as a nod to the real Vlad the Impaler, who inspired Stoker.
—Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 24 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for visage
Cite this Entry
“Visage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visage. Accessed 12 Mar. 2025.
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visage
noun
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