or phyz, physog, subs. (old).—The face: see DIAL.—B. E. (c. 1696); GROSE (1785).
1693. CONGREVE, The Old Bachelor, iv. 8. What a furious PHIZ I have.
1702. STEELE, The Funeral; or, Grief à-la-Mode, i. 1. Who can see such a horrid ugly PHYZ as that Fellow’s and not be shock’d?
1708–10. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, Intro. Abbreviations exquisitely refined; as,… PHIZZ for Phisiognomy.
1725. N. BAILEY, trans. The Colloquies of Erasmus, I. 51. Why, truly a Body would think so by thy slovenly Dress, lean Carcass, and ghastly PHYZ.
1785. D. FERGUSON, ed. A Select Collection of Scots Poems, Chiefly in the Broad Buchan Dialect, 33, ‘Ulysses’ Answer to Ajax’s Speech.’
| Can Ajax count his sculls wi’ me? | |
| Fan I brought Priam’s sin, | |
| And Pallas’ PHIZ, out thro’ my faes. |
1789. G. PARKER, Song, ‘The Masqueraders,’ iv. [FARMER, Musa Pedestris (1896), 73].
| Twig methodist PHIZZES, with mask sanctimonious, | |
| Their rigs prove to judge that their PHIZ is erroneous. |
1828. G. SMEETON, Doings in London. There is an odious harmony between his glossy garment and his smooth and senseless PHIZ.
1841. LEMAN REDE, Sixteen-String Jack, ‘Song.’
| Says Jack, says he, with his knowing PHIZ, | |
| ‘I ain’t very pertic’lar who it is!’ |
1886–96. MARSHALL, ‘Pomes’ from the Pink ’Un, 76. He’d his right mince in mourning, which so worried Liz That she bung’d up his left, just to steady his PHIZ.
1894. G. EGERTON, Keynotes, 87. It was so jolly to see the quaint little PHIZ smile up when I went in.
