as in features
formal
the appearance of a person's face; a person's facial features
He and his son have the same distinctive physiognomy.
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Recent Examples of physiognomy
Guston’s first comic for The Junior Times, a sparse strip drawn at age 12, introduced Little Snowball, a Black youth bearing exaggerated racial physiognomy and dialect.
—
Walker Mimms, New York Times, 4 June 2024
Her husband would catch her staring clinically at his physiognomy.
—Dan Piepenbring, Harper's Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024
And, of course, there was the perennial punch line of physiognomy: sight gags, sketches, and songs that depicted Jewish bodies as misshapen and absurd.
—Jody Rosen, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2023
Meanwhile, a younger generation has brought new shades of irony to riffs on Jewish identity and physiognomy.
—Jody Rosen, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2023
See All Example Sentences for physiognomy
Walker Mimms, New York Times, 4 June 2024
Her husband would catch her staring clinically at his physiognomy.
—Dan Piepenbring, Harper's Magazine, 9 Jan. 2024
And, of course, there was the perennial punch line of physiognomy: sight gags, sketches, and songs that depicted Jewish bodies as misshapen and absurd.
—Jody Rosen, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2023
Meanwhile, a younger generation has brought new shades of irony to riffs on Jewish identity and physiognomy.
—Jody Rosen, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2023
See All Example Sentences for physiognomy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for physiognomy
Noun
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Still, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that about 34 people a day in the United States die in drunk-driving crashes — that’s one person every 42 minutes.—
Josh Max,
Forbes.com,
9 July 2025
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And while a normal person will just digest that and process it, an allergic person actually sees this as a foreign threat.—
Josh Hammer,
MSNBC Newsweek,
9 July 2025
Noun
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Between her performance, an aerialist’s acrobatics, and courtside appearances from stars like Leslie Jones, Dawn Staley, Bam Adebayo, and Robin Roberts, All-Star Weekend doubled as a celebration of sports and entertainment.—
Okla Jones,
Essence,
21 July 2025
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In an appearance on the Paramount+ series The Checkup with Dr. David Agus, Ashton revealed a terrifying and emotional moment when the brothers were kids.—
Grace Gavilanes,
People.com,
20 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Physiognomy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/physiognomy. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.
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