countenance

1. 1.

   consent to, give permission

   “She permitted her son to visit her estranged husband”

   “I won't let the police search her basement”

   “I cannot allow you to see your exam”

   Synonymspermitallowlet

   Broaderaccept

   Narrowerdigestfurloughgiveallowauthorizeadmitprivilegelegalizetrust

Other forms of countenance

plural

countenances·

past tense

countenanced·

present participle

countenancing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about countenance

What does countenance mean?

countenance means "the appearance conveyed by a person's face". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in countenance?

countenance has 3 syllables: coun-te-nance. The stress falls on "coun". In IPA it is /ˈkaʊntənəns/.

What is another word for countenance?

Close synonyms include visage, sanction, endorsement, indorsement, warrant. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is countenance a common word?

countenance is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.