Face-to-face means happening with both people present in person. A face-to-face meeting.
It settles things that a dozen messages will not, which everybody rediscovers periodically. A face-to-face conversation carries expression and timing that no call reproduces.
1adjectiveface-to-faceHappening with both people present in person.
“They finally met face-to-face after four years of emails.”
face-to-face is a quality.
Face plus to plus face; the phrase is recorded in English from the fourteenth century.
face + to + face
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA