To keep a straight face is to stop yourself laughing when you badly want to. The mouth stays still and the eyes give you away.
It is one of the hardest small physical feats there is, and the harder you try the worse it gets, particularly when somebody else is failing at the same time. The phrase belongs to comedy, to formal occasions and to any situation where laughing would be unforgivable. Deadpan is the professional version, meaning delivering a joke with no expression at all.
1phrasekeep a straight faceTo avoid laughing or smiling when you want to.
“I could barely keep a straight face through the whole speech.”
Practised in Idioms, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 22 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word