sheep-faced

English

Alternative forms

Adjective

sheep-faced (comparative more sheep-faced, superlative most sheep-faced)

  1. (dated) bashful; sheepish
    • 1908, Alfred Sutro, The barrier; a new and original play in four acts, page 54:
      Margaret and Marillier stand, he rather sheepfaced, but putting on a bold and smiling front,
    • 1922, Percival Gibbon, Looters‎[1], Chicago Tribune:
      So presently his lordship began to tell his symptoms to the doctor. The first part of ‘em seemed natural enough for a sheep faced village idiot like him.
    • 1936 January, Thomas Raddall, “Winter's Tale”, in Blackwood's Magazine, page 13:
      The sheep-faced soldier said, “What-say we tear up some floorboards upstairs an’ cover some of these cellar winders?”
    • 1950 January 15, “Carnival time... Four Nights and Three Days when Rio has Fun”, in Brazilian Bulletin, page 5:
      Some do go beyond the bounds, and the police round them up, amid snickers, and keep them in safe quarters until Ash Wednesday. Then, in sheepfaced groups, the transgressors creep out of the “xadrés,” Rio slang for lock-up, and run the gauntlet of huge crowds of laughing onlookers
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see sheep,‎ face.

References

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