facial

facial — adjective

1. relating to the human face — describing its appearance, expressions, features, o

1.adjectiveA2
Definition

relating to the human face — describing its appearance, expressions, features, or products used on the skin of the face.

Example

Feng's facial expression showed surprise when he opened the gift.

collocation: facial expression

Charlotte bought a gentle facial cleanser for her sensitive skin.

collocation: facial cleanser / facial cream

Common collocations
  • facial expression
  • facial features
  • facial hair
  • facial cleanser
  • facial cream
  • facial massage
  • facial recognition

Grammar Patterns

facial + noun

Usage Note

Frequently used before nouns to describe things related to a person's face. Unlike most adjectives, facial has no comparative or superlative form — you cannot say 'more facial' or 'most facial.'

Common Mistakes

She has a beautiful facial.
She has a beautiful face.
The noun 'facial' means a beauty treatment, not a person's face.

facial — noun

Word family

  • face
    nounA1
  • facially
    adverbB2
  • facelift
    nounC1

Synonym discussion

Sense: adjective/1

'Facial' (adjective) and 'face' (used as a noun modifier) overlap in meaning but differ in usage. 'Facial' is the standard descriptor for features, expressions, and medical or cosmetic contexts: 'facial features', 'facial hair', 'facial recognition'. 'Face' as a modifier sounds natural in product names ('face cream', 'face wash') and everyday compounds ('face value'), but sounds odd in formal or clinical contexts ('face features' would be non-standard). 'On the face' is a descriptive phrase rather than an adjective, used when location is the main point: 'a cut on the face' not 'a facial cut'. In most compound contexts, 'facial' is the idiomatic choice for anything relating to the face as a whole.

facial ↗face (as modifier)on the face

Common collocations

Nouns

Etymology

LatinMedieval LatinEnglish

The word 'facial' comes from the Latin 'facies', meaning 'face, appearance, or form'. It entered English through Medieval Latin 'facialis' in the 1600s, originally used in anatomy and medicine. The adjective sense has been in continuous use since then. The noun sense — meaning a beauty treatment for the face — appeared around the early 1900s, when professional skincare services became popular in salons and spas.