slap in the face
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.96 in modern English
23
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Something unexpectedly said or done which causes shock or offense; an insult, rebuke, or rebuff.
noun
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see slap, in, the, face. (This sense is a translation hub.)
verb
To insult or offend unnecessarily.
Example Sentences
- "That Joan's ex-boyfriend turned up to the school dance with Mary was a slap in the face for Joan, and the girls are no longer friends."
- "As things were, Ulric would probably renounce and marry ignominiously or die unmarried and the hated Michaels would step in, for, once king, the conventional Robert would never give his consent to such an alliance. Besides, it would be a 'damned slap in the face' to half the remaining royalty of Europe […]"
- "With the election of George Bush this country has apparently chosen an answer to the AIDS crisis consisting of the most reactionary social principles. Adding insult to injury, it is a response which makes a show of slapping all marginalized groups in the face."
Inflected Forms
slaps in the face (plural)
slaps in the face (present, singular)
slapping in the face (participle, present)
slapped in the face (participle, past)
slapped in the face (past)