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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
Gordon G. Chang, Newsweek, 31 Oct. 2024
Heidi Klum as an alien transformer in 2010 Klum went as an alien transformer in 2010, embracing a glittery purple visage, wearing bright red armor, and walking on stilts.
—Madeline Boardman, EW.com, 30 Oct. 2024
The finding could offer clues as to how and why humans see this visage mirage.
—Byhannah Richter, science.org, 4 Oct. 2024
That much is evident in the shots that bookend this compassionate film — two women, surveying their own visages in different hairdresser mirrors.
—Tomris Laffly, Variety, 2 Sep. 2024
See all Example Sentences for visage 
Dictionary Entries Near visage
Cite this Entry
“Visage.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visage. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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visage
noun
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