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face the music love

face the music

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb idiomatic to accept or confront the unpleasant consequences of one's actions

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb accept the unpleasant consequences of one's actions

Etymologies

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Examples

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hypernyms (4)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. accept
  2. assume
  3. bear
  4. takeover

cross-references (2)

Cross-references

  1. face up to
  2. pay the piper

Comments

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  • skipvia commented on the word face the music

    See Body Metaphors.

    February 28, 2008

  • cohenizzy commented on the word face the music

    The "music" in "face the music" may be a phono-semantic match (PSM) of Yiddish maskone = inference, consequence from Hebrew MaSKaNaH = conclusion, inference, deduction. However, it could be a reversal of the sounds in eXaM(ination). The most likely consequence of one's actions is an examination of those actions.

    This is currently the only English idiom I know that could have (and may have) been formed in both of these ways. Its pattern of usage on Ngram Viewer shows a sharp rise in the late 1840s which coincides with a significant influx of Jewish immigrants from Germany to the United States. But the first attested usage is in New Hampshire in 1934 and that usage may have been the result of a reversal of the KSM sounds in "exam".

    December 26, 2020