a. [f. SMOOTH a. 14.]
1. Of persons: Having a face free from hair, wrinkles, etc.; clean-shaven, beardless.
c. 1580[?]. in Nichols, Topographer, II. 400. Thomas Myeld in whight armours faire, and smooth-fased.
1591. Troub. Raigne K. John, xi. 42. A smooth-facte Nunne is all the Abbots wealth.
1621. Quarles, Esther, iv. Hopefull Princes (ill-aduis’d By young, and smooth-fac’d Councell).
1689. Lond. Gaz., No. 2056/4. John Randall,… smooth faced, aged about 20.
1756. C. Smart, trans. Horace, Sat., I. x. (1826), II. 81. The smooth-faced [L. pulcher] Hermogenes.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Hours w. Mystics (1860), I. 89. No shavelings,… like the smooth-faced sanctities of the later calendar.
1883. Standard, 16 May, 5/6. In early days marks of small-pox were so prevalent that it was common to distinguish one free from them as a smooth-faced person.
transf. 1594. Shaks., Rich. III., V. v. 33. Let thy Heires … Enrich the time to come, with Smooth-fac’d Peace, With smiling Plenty.
b. fig. Having or assuming a bland, ingratiating or insinuating expression; plausible in manner.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 573. He that winnes of all…: That smooth-fac’d Gentleman, tickling commoditie.
1603. J. Davies (Heref.), Humours Heaven, Wks. (Grosart), I. 43/2. Rogh-cast the skin of smooth-fac’d glozing Guile With burning blisters.
1682. Creech, Lucretius (1683), 170. Nor could the treacherous smile Of smooth-fac’t Wares tempt one poor man to toyl.
1812. Shelley, Address, Prose Wks. 1888, I. 228. Take care then of smooth-faced impostors, who talk indeed of freedom, but who will cheat you into slavery.
1862. Sala, Ship Chandler, ii. 22. How much has that smooth-faced hound given you to stand in with him?
2. fig. Of words, etc.: Specious, plausible.
1620–6. Quarles, Feast for Wormes (1638), 14. They whose smooth-fac’d words become the Altar.
1677. Gilpin, Dæmonol. (1867), 194. Weak heads cannot see the far end of a smooth-faced doctrine.
3. Of things: Having a smooth face or surface.
1647. H. More, Poems, 319. The rough Earth, one smooth-fac’d Round would show.
1648. J. Beaumont, Psyche, II. cxxxix. For his rich Ring of smoothfac’d Diamond.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Note-bks. (1872), II. 68. Other smooth-faced and stuccoed edifices.
1896. Daily News, 19 Dec., 6/4. A smooth-faced cloth in a soft tone of heliotrope.
