fair-faced, a.
1. a. Having a fair or light-coloured complexion. b. Of beautiful countenance.
The two senses are in many early examples not easy to distinguish.
| 1588 Shakes. Tit. A. iv. ii. 68 (Qo.) Here is the babe as loathsome as a toade, Amongst the fairefast [ed. 1623 fairest] breeders of our clime. 1607 Rowlands Famous Hist. 56 The beauteous fair-fac'd Bride. 1689 Lond. Gaz. No. 2512/4 He is a low well set Man, fair faced. 1795 Fate of Sedley I. 130 A fair-faced son of an Eastern Sultan. 1864 J. Forster Life Sir J. Eliot I. 28 The fair-faced fiend..had received her sentence on the previous day. |
2. Having a fair appearance (see face n. 8), pretty; fair to the eye only, specious.
| 1595 Shakes. John ii. i. 417, I shall shew you peace, and faire-fac'd league. 1616 Hayward Sanct. Troub. Soul i. (1620) 9 The faire-faced shewes of the world. 1693 Congreve Double-Dealer ii. viii, Tis such a pleasure to angle for fair-faced fools! |
3. Of brickwork or stonework: not plastered.
| 1948 Archit. Rev. CIV. 132 (caption) The walls are of fair-faced brickwork, distempered. 1958 Ibid. CXXIII. 131 The offices are of r.c. construction with brick infill, with columns slate-faced and the edge beams fairfaced. 1970 Interior Design Dec. 775/1 An industrial standard of finish has been adopted with fair-faced brick partitions, exposed concrete, and granolithic floor. 1971 Country Life 30 Sept. 848/1 In the Tweed valley the walls are beautifully built in ‘fair-faced’ hand-split blue whinstone. |