Other forms: countenanced, countenances, countenancing
To countenance is to allow or approve of something. Refuse to countenance it, cannot countenance the idea, countenance a delay.
It is formal and used almost entirely in the negative: will not countenance is how a statement refuses something firmly. As a noun it means the face, which is the older sense, and to keep your countenance is to keep a straight face.
1verbcountenanceTo allow or approve of something.
“The head teacher would never countenance students using their phones in class.”
countenance is an allowing.
Old French contenance meant bearing or demeanour, from Latin continere, to hold together.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
continentia
Old French
contenance
Anglo-Norman
countenance
Middle English
contenaunce
English, today
countenance
From Middle English contenaunce, countenaunce, from Anglo-Norman countenance and Old French contenance, from the present participle of contenir, or from Latin continentia, and therefore a a doublet of continence.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA