Tag Archives: nose idioms

Bodily expressions III: Faces, noses & mouths; teeth, cheeks & chins

Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

Continuing Glossophilia’s 10-part series on bodily expressions.

We’ve gathered all the phrases and expressions we can possibly think of that make use of bodily parts in all their glory — and divided them into ten broad categories* descending from head to toe (and then some …). We’ve left out one- and two-word euphemistic adjectives and tried to avoid expressions that refer too literally to our actual limbs, organs or orifices; what follows are phrases that tend towards the metaphorical and poetic, even though some can also be taken more literally.

Here we have phrases using faces, noses, mouths (and the mouth’s various constituent parts), cheeks and chins. Coming up next: necks, throats and shoulders. Continue reading