familiar face
- noun
- /fəˈmɪljər feɪs/
- It was reassuring to see a familiar face in the crowded room during the event.
- recognition of familiar faces
- response to familiar faces
It's so great to see so many people here and a few familiar faces.
- It's so great to see so many people here and a few familiar faces.
- Like, it just really warped my heart, you know, just coming out and seeing this familiar face, just chilling, waiting for me.
- So the portal door is closing quickly up above them, and that's when Hunt sees a few familiar faces.
Examples
-
As I look around our library, I see familiar faces.
Academic text (2015) -
Travelling to places where you are warmly welcomed by familiar faces is underrated.
-
Well, so good to see a familiar face here.
-
I knew you had a familiar face.
-
Nice to see a familiar face.
-
When it did, it would be a familiar face, one he had seen all his life.
Fiction book (1991) -
It's nice to see so many familiar faces and even some new ones.
-
On the pier, he looked down into the ship, and a familiar face looked up at him.
Fiction book (1990) -
As I searched the room for familiar faces, I noticed them everywhere.
Fiction book (1997) -
She thought it might be helpful for you to see a familiar face.
Antonyms
How Recognizable
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person whose appearance is known' is directly and compositionally derived from 'familiar' (known from prior experience) plus 'face' (a person's visage/identity). This adjective + noun combination follows a standard compositional pattern that is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
Familiar face comes from the simple image of a face you see again and again. The word familiar means it feels like someone you know, so the phrase means 'a person whose look is easily recognized'.