set one's face against
"set-one-s-face-against" is a 18-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“set one's face against” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 22
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To oppose strenuously; to determine not to do or accept.
Corpus desk
Index EN-set-one-s-face-against · set one's face against · English
set one's face against · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 22 letters
- VOW-8 8 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "S" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | set one's face against |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 22 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “set one's face against” in English
Rare enough to double-check
set one's face against is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To oppose strenuously; to determine not to do or accept.".
No misspelling variants are generated for set one's face against in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is set one's face against, spelled S-E-T- -O-N-E-'-S- -F-A-C-E- -A-G-A-I-N-S-T.
Definition
- 1To oppose strenuously; to determine not to do or accept.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how set one's face against appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
As these gatherings generally ended in drunkenness and rough and dangerous fun, the ministers set their faces against the observance, and were seconded in their efforts by the more intelligent and well-behaved in the community.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.