faz

Forms

faz f (plural faces)^[1] The earliest glosses spell the word face; from 1030 it is written faz.^[2] In the Middle Ages the word was pronounced haz, although it was usually written faz.^[3][2] The DEMel records the spellings fas and ffaz and the plurals fazes and fases.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish faz, inherited from Latin faciēs (“form, appearance; face”).^[2][3][5][1] The medieval word was pronounced with /h/; when cara gained ground it took on an archaic tone, and the literary language fixed on the old spelling with f- for “face” (Alfonso de Palencia, 1490, Cervantes), while the spelling with h- survived only in special senses and set phrases.^[2][3] Wiktionary calls it a doublet of haz and of the learned facies.^[1] facha and fachada are later borrowings of Italian faccia and facciata.^[3][6]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese face, Galician face, Catalan faç and Old Occitan fatz.^[6][7] Italian, French and Romanian continue a Late Latin variant *facia, hence French face and Romanian față beside the Italian word.^[7][8]

The Latin noun is derived from faciō (“to make, do”), as speciēs is from speciō; it first meant “a make, form, outward appearance”, then “face”.^[9][1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the form face in the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses of about 950;^[2][10] faz appears in a document of 1030 and in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy).^[2][10] In the Cid's prayer a man whose hands are smeared with the blood running down a spear shaft raises them a la faz “to his face” and opens his eyes.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the word for a person's face, and Alfonso X's prose also for the side or surface of a thing (the upper face of a stone in the Lapidario), for each third of a sign of the zodiac in astrology, and in faz a faz “face to face”.^[12] In the plural it meant the cheeks: Alfonso's laws punish those who scratch their faces in mourning, and the sense “cheek” survives in Leonese speech.^[12][2][5] The phrase en faz y en paz “publicly and peacefully”, frequent in 12th-century fueros, joins the two phrases en faz de and en paz de; the Old Spanish preposition faz a “towards” became hacia.^[2][6]

By the late 15th century the rise of cara had made the word archaic: Nebrija still gave haz “face” for Latin facies, but Palencia and Cervantes used only faz, and haz was kept for the right side of a cloth and the surface of the earth.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 explains faz as “face”, from which haz, the face of anything, and antifaz were named; the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the front surface of a thing, faz a faz and a prima faz “at first sight”.^[13][14] The Academy's dictionaries from 1817 to 1869 also listed under faz the obsolete senses “bundle” and “squadron” and the preposition “towards”; from 1884 these went under separate headwords or under haz.^[15][16][17] Baralt in 1855 accepted en faz de and faz a faz as good Castilian, but condemned other uses modelled on French face as Gallicisms.^[18]

Today the word is literary for “face” and common for the surface or appearance of something, as in la faz de la tierra.^[5][19]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the spelling face in the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses.^[2][3]
• 1030 – faz in a document.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the side of a stone and for a third of a zodiac sign.^[12]
• 1277 – faz a faz in Alfonso X's astronomical books.^[12]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses only the form faz.^[2][3]
• 1531 – first record with f- from the Americas, in Mexico City: en faz de Gregorio de Saldaña “in the presence of Gregorio de Saldaña”.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains faz, haz and antifaz.^[13]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records faz a faz and a prima faz.^[14]
• 1855 – Baralt discusses en faz de as a Castilian phrase.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. (literary) The face, countenance: Una sonrisa le iluminó la faz.^[5][21][1]
2. The surface, appearance or side of something: la faz de la tierra.^[5][19]
3. The obverse of a coin or medal (anverso).^[5][21]
4. (geometry) A face of a polyhedron or other solid.^[1][22]
5. (obsolete, in the plural) The cheeks (mejillas).^[5]

Word family

• antifaz
• acera

Related words

• superficie
• haz
• hacia
• facies
• facha
• fachada
• faceta
• facial
• Italian faccia

Usage notes

The plural is faces.^[1] Santa Faz or Sacra Faz is an image of the face of Christ, in particular the one left on Veronica's cloth.^[5][21] A primera faz means “at first sight”.^[5] Moliner and the older Academy dictionaries also have an obsolete faz “sheaf”, a form of haz from Latin fascis.^[21][23] In the Cantar de mio Cid faz is also a form of the verb fazer “to do”, a different word.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 329
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. faz
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. faz
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. faz
6. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. facies
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3130
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. faccia
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. faz
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. faz
12. ^ a b c d Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. faz
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 835
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 729
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 412
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 356
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 490
18. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 305
19. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. faz
20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. faz
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. faz
22. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. faz
23. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 762