set one's face against

set one's face against idiom
Strongly disapprove, as in Her parents set their faces against her eloping. The term set one's face has been used in the sense of “assume a fixed facial expression” since the mid-1500s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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