facial gesture
1
2.9
- noun
:
gesto facial
- Though he wasn't severe, his facial gestures were always rigid.
- bizarre facial gesture
- inappropriate facial gestures
Examples
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Meltzoff and Moore (1983) established that infants as young as forty-two minutes old successfully imitate adult facial gestures, such as tongue protrusion and mouth opening.
Academic text (2001) -
Communication tends to occur, to a certain degree, through facial gestures such as smiling.
Academic text (2018) -
You hold the facial gesture, like a smile or eyebrow raise, and take a snapshot.
Blog text (30) -
Sandra made some sort of facial gesture, a shrug of sorts, to the driver, who asked if she was all right.
Fiction book (1991) -
Good speakers pay attention to their body language, which includes facial gestures, posture, movements, eye contact, and hand gestures.
Academic text (2011) -
Chimpanzees obviously communicate with facial gestures and hand gestures and vocalizations.
-
The conductor will use his or her hands, fingertips, facial gestures, and elbows to communicate the nuances of a piece of music.
Academic text (1995) -
You can understand his feelings through his facial gesture of raising his eyebrows.
-
A simple facial gesture like a smile can make someone feel welcomed.
-
She used a facial gesture to show her disappointment when she heard the news.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
The expression that shows a person's feelings
315
2.5
A look on the face that shows what someone feels or thinks
24
1.8
A look or movement on the face that shows feelings
How Expressive
1
2.9
24
1.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and transparently derived from combining 'facial' (related to the face) with 'gesture' (a movement expressing feeling); the phrase simply specifies a gesture made with the face. This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g. Spanish 'gesto facial', French 'geste facial'), so a B1 learner who knows both words will readily understand the MWE.
Etymology
Facial gesture comes from two simple words: facial meaning 'of the face' and gesture meaning 'a movement to show feeling or an idea'. People long ago and today use small movements of the face, like a smile or a frown, to show feeling, so a facial gesture is a face movement that sends a message without words.