facial

Pluralfacials

1. 1
   adjective

   Relating to the face, or affecting it.

   The accident left him with minor facial injuries.

   Doctors watched for facial swelling after the allergic reaction.

   Note

   English took the word in the early 17th century from Medieval Latin facialis, built on facies, "face, form, countenance," though the Latin itself meant "face-to-face, direct, open." It is a relational adjective: it stands before a noun, as in facial injuries or facial expressions, and it is not graded, so nothing is very facial.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A personal beauty treatment for the face that involves cleansing and moisturizing the skin.

   She books a facial every month to keep her skin clear.

   The hotel spa's menu lists three facials, each ending with a moisturizing mask.

   Note

   The noun counts like any appointment: people get or book a facial, a spa menu lists several facials, and a monthly facial can become a routine. It names the treatment itself, while the cosmetic adjective labels the creams and services around it.

3. 3
   adjective

   Having to do with improving the look of the face, or used for that purpose.

   The salon's facial products are made for sensitive skin.

   The clinic offers facial treatments such as peels and fillers.

   Note

   Here the adjective is about purpose rather than place: a facial cream or treatment exists to improve how the face looks, while facial injuries in the general sense simply happen to be on it. The same pairing can lean either way, so facial products are cosmetic but facial swelling is a symptom.

4. 4
   nounslangcountable

   A sex act in which one person ejaculates onto another person's face, especially as shown in pornography.

   The director cut the facial from the scene to get a softer rating.

   Some performers refuse to do facials, and the studios they work with know it.

   Note

   This is slang from pornography and casual talk about sex. It shares its spelling with the beauty treatment, the meaning most readers expect, so it is heard this way only where the context is plainly sexual. Money shot is related slang from the same world.

5. 5
   adjective

   Of a law or regulation's validity: judged on its face, as it appears, rather than after closer analysis or as it is applied in practice.

   The court rejected the facial challenge but left room for claims about how the statute is enforced.

   Critics argued that the policy's facial neutrality hid a pattern of unequal treatment.

   Note

   Its working partner is as-applied: a facial challenge attacks a law as written, while an as-applied challenge attacks only its use in one case. The same contrast runs through facial constitutionality and facial neutrality. Bernard E. Harcourt's Illusion of Order (2001) pairs it with stated, writing of the "stated or facial claims of equality and rights" of the French Revolution.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A kind of early silent film that focuses on the expressions of an actor's face.

   The archive's oldest facial shows a comedian pulling faces for barely a minute.

   Facials let audiences study an actor's grimaces and winks in a way the stage never could.

   Note

   Film historians use the word for a genre of early cinema. Simon Popple and Joe Kember, in Early Cinema: From Factory Gate to Dream Factory (2004), describe facials as exaggerating an existing tradition of expressive performance, the camera bringing a new emphasis to the details of an actor's face.

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