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Countenance   /kˈaʊntənəns/   Listen
noun
Countenance  n.  
1.
Appearance or expression of the face; look; aspect; mien. "So spake the Son, and into terror changed His countenance."
2.
The face; the features. "In countenance somewhat doth resemble you."
3.
Approving or encouraging aspect of face; hence, favor, good will, support; aid; encouragement. "Thou hast made him... glad with thy countenance." "This is the magistrate's peculiar province, to give countenance to piety and virtue, and to rebuke vice."
4.
Superficial appearance; show; pretense. (Obs.) "The election being done, he made countenance of great discontent thereat."
In countenance, in an assured condition or aspect; free from shame or dismay. "It puts the learned in countenance, and gives them a place among the fashionable part of mankind."
Out of countenance, not bold or assured; confounded; abashed. "Their best friends were out of countenance, because they found that the imputations... were well grounded."
To keep the countenance, to preserve a composed or natural look, undisturbed by passion or emotion.


verb
Countenance  v. t.  (past & past part. countenanced; pres. part. countenancing)  
1.
To encourage; to favor; to approve; to aid; to abet. "This conceit, though countenanced by learned men, is not made out either by experience or reason." "Error supports custom, custom countenances error."
2.
To make a show of; to pretend. (Obs.) "Which to these ladies love did countenance."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Countenance" Quotes from Famous Books



... tipcat he paused, and stood staring wildly upwards with his stick in his hand. He had heard a voice asking him whether he would leave his sins and go to heaven, or keep his sins and go to hell; and he had seen an awful countenance frowning on him from the sky. The odious vice of bell-ringing he renounced; but he still for a time ventured to go to the church tower and look on while others pulled the ropes. But soon the thought struck him ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... after his sermon, his strength being much wasted, and his spirits so spent as indisposed him to business or to talk, a friend that had often been a witness of his free and facetious discourse asked him, "Why are you sad?" To whom he replied with a countenance so full of cheerful gravity, as gave testimony of an inward tranquillity of mind, and of a soul willing to take a farewell of this world, ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... Ben's countenance fell. He did not seem as near to the object of his journey as he at first thought. Still, it was something to obtain a clue. Perhaps at Murphy's he might get a trace of Dewey, and, following it ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... out open to Mrs. Wix. "Read that." She looked at him hard, as if in fear: it was impossible not to see he was excited. Then she took the letter, but it was not her face that Maisie watched while she read. Neither, for that matter, was it this countenance that Sir Claude scanned: he stood before the fire and, more calmly, now that he had acted, communed in ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... folds of a crimson morning dress, which at least would keep her in countenance; her face more delicate than pale; her step rather hesitating than slow; her thoughts in a maze of dreamland as misty and bright and shy as the morning sunbeams that went everywhere and just kept out of reach. What had happened before ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner


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