FrenchSe composer le visage
Meaning: To adopt a serious or carefully studied expression suited to the circumstances.
Literally: To compose oneself the face
Example: “Avant d'entrer dans la salle d'audience, l'avocat s'est composé le visage.” — Before walking into the courtroom, the lawyer composed his features.
Origin: Composer keeps here its classical sense of arranging something deliberately. The phrase is classical French: in Racine's Britannicus (1669), courtiers "compose their faces" by watching Caesar's eyes, and Fénelon has them model their faces on a powerful minister's. Today it is said of anyone putting on the expression a situation requires, a lawyer before a hearing or a mourner at a funeral.
More French idioms
- Prendre le train en marche To join opportunely in an action or endeavor already underway.
- Aiguiser ses couteaux To prepare oneself for conflict or confrontation.
- Passer le Rubicon To make a decisive, irrevocable commitment or choice with serious consequences.
- Être à ramasser à la petite cuiller To be completely exhausted, utterly without strength.
- Casser le nez à coups d’encensoir To offer someone clumsy, exaggerated, and insincere flattery to their face.
- Péter la balloune (Quebec French) To cause deep disappointment; to shatter someone's illusions or hopes.
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