double-faced, a.
(-feɪst)
1. a. Having two faces or aspects.
| 1589 Greene Menaphon (Arb.) 29 Chance is like Ianus, double faced. a 1711 Ken Preparatives Poet. Wks. 1721 IV. 140 Double-fac'd Death. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. II. 36 Double-faced as these inventions are—wearing one meaning in the apologies of theologians, and quite another to the multitude. a 1877 Knight Dict. Mech. I. 726/1 Double-faced, a term applied to an architrave, or the like, having two faces. 1927 Jespersen Mod. Eng. Gram. III. xi. 215 Some phrases are..double-faced. 1963 Visser Hist. Syntax Eng. Lang. I. ii. 99 In Old English the number of double-faced or amphibious verbs was far inferior to that of transitive verbs. |
b. Of a fabric: Finished on both sides, so that either may be used as the right side.
c. Of a gramophone record: having a recording on each side (cf. double-sided (s.v. double a. C. 4 a)).
| 1936 Amer. Speech XI. 5 The author has made ten double-faced phonograph records. |
2. fig. ‘Facing two ways’; professing different things to different people; insincere.
| 1575–85 Abp. Sandys Serm. (1841) 64 Deep dissemblers, double-hearted, double-tongued, double-faced. 1577 Test. 12 Patriarchs (1604) 134 Double-fac'd men God abhorreth. 1825 T. Jefferson Autobiog. Wks. 1859 I. 63 Those whom he knew to be slippery and double-faced. |
Hence double-ˈfacedness, the quality of being double-faced; duplicity, insincerity.
| 1867 Sala Fr. Waterloo to Penin. II. 116 An element in Spanish statecraft..known as doblez, or doublefacedness. 1887 Colvin Keats 79 Of double-facedness or insincerity..Hunt was incapable. |