14 Ways to Describe Facial Expressions in English [with the Eyebrows, Eyes, Mouth, and Chin]

I've got a question for you.

How would you describe the look on this woman's face?

What exactly is she doing with her eyes and her mouth?

And what emotion is she conveying with that expression?

Although you may easily understand and recognize universal signs

of happiness, surprise and anger. When you look at someone's face,

how do you actually describe what they're doing in English?

It's complicated. Isn't it?

If you don't already know I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English,

everything I do here is designed to help you get the confidence you want for

your life and work in English. And today in this Confident English lesson,

we're going to dive into the world of descriptive language for facial

expressions. In fact,

you're going to learn 14 different ways to describe what someone is doing with

their eyebrows, eyes, mouth, and chin,

so that you can accurately describe facial expressions and micro-expressions.

By the end of this lesson,

you'll have the descriptive language you need for those nonverbal signs of

communication and the emotions behind them.

So you can create visual images in your English conversations and in your

writing.

In a moment we're going to dive right in to talking about the eyebrows,

but quickly before we do that,

because this is a vocabulary focus lesson. If you don't already,

I recommend getting a pen and a notebook or a piece of paper where you can keep

track of all this new language, refer to it regularly,

practice it consistently so that you add it to your active vocabulary.

And now let's talk about the eyebrows.

Think about a time when you've been frustrated or angry with someone,

what did your eyebrows naturally do?

They were drawn together in English.

We like to describe this as furrowed eyebrows or knitted

eyebrows. Let me use it in an example sentence for you,

Jackie furrowed her eyebrows,

as she worried about her son's health.

By using that language in a sentence,

you are creating a visual image for your listeners and your

readers. When they hear that language,

Jackie furrowed her eyebrows,

they immediately get that picture in their mind and they know how she

felt based on that description. Now,

what if someone is feeling surprised, amused or bewildered,

what do they naturally do with their eyebrows?

Think about a time when you felt surprised, what did you do?

Your eyebrows went up.

We described this as raised eyebrows to raise your eyebrows

in surprise or raise your eyebrows in shock. Again,

let me share an example sentence with you, Ken looked

at his sister with raised eyebrows when she told him she's moving to

Australia. And now let's transition this just a little bit.

Imagine someone who is skeptical,

they don't believe what you're saying,

or maybe they're even a little angry. What do they do?

They don't raise both eyebrows (that tells us someone feels

surprised), but they might raise one.

We describe this as an arched eyebrow.

To arch your brow or arch your eyebrow in

disbelief, or to arch your brow in skepticism.

Here's an example sentence.

Cynthia arched her brow as she wondered whether her brother was telling

her the truth. She arched her brow. All right,

so we've got knitted or furrowed eyebrows raised eyebrows and an

arched brow. Before we move on to the eyes.

If you want to practice this a really fun way to do that is to look at

images of facial expressions and to see what you notice.

See if you can find someone who looks bewildered or surprised and you'll

notice they have raised eyebrows. Similarly,

if you can find a picture of someone who is showing skepticism or

disbelief on their face,

you'll probably notice that they are arching just one brow.

So you can look at a variety of facial expressions and practice

describing them out loud, using the vocabulary that you've learned here.

And now let's talk about the eyes because the eyes are fascinating.

In English, we say the eyes are the windows to the soul.

So let's see what they have to say.

I want you to you just think back to a situation when someone began to

speak on a topic that was absolutely unfamiliar to you,

maybe it was outside of your area of expertise.

They were using language you'd never really heard before.

And as a result, how did you feel?

You probably felt confused, overwhelmed,

maybe even clueless. And what did your eyes do?

They were big, open and empty or blank.

If someone looks at us like this,

we say they are showing a blank stare,

or they had a blank stare on their face.

In addition to using a blank stare to describe someone who's feeling confused

and clueless.

Sometimes we also describe someone who's lost in a daydream

as having blank stare.

Maybe you've noticed a colleague before sitting at her desk,

but she wasn't really focused on her work. She wasn't present in the moment.

Instead, she might have been staring off into space,

a great idiomatic expression that we have in English to stare off

into space with a blank stare on her face.

She was probably lost in a daydream or really thinking about some

complicated problem in her mind,

but she certainly was not present in the moment.

In addition to showing signs of confusion or cluelessness,

our eyes also tell others when we're feeling overwhelmingly

joyful, happy, or if we have feelings of mischief,

have you ever notice the way someone's eyes catch the light and

sparkle when they are truly happy or joyful?

When that happens,

we can describe their eyes as sparkling eyes or to have a

sparkle in one's eye to have a twinkle in

one's eyes. These words, these two words,

sparkle and twinkle are also words that we use to describe the stars in the

night sky.

So think back for a moment when one of your closest friends received some

amazing news, how did her eyes look?

They were probably sparkling with excitement or sparkling with

joy. Here's another example sentence.

I noticed the sparkle in my dad's eye,

as he waited behind the door to prank my mom.

All right,

let's move on to our third descriptive way of talking about someone's eyes.

And I want you to think about what someone does with their eyes when

they feel a pang of jealousy, suspicion,

maybe even a bit of that anger,

what do they do when we're jealous or suspicious?

We tend to close our eyes partly not all the way,

but we close our eyes partly.

And we also do this when we feel angry.

English speakers describe this as narrowed eyes to

narrow your eyes in anger or narrow your eyes and suspicion.

Now we have to be careful here,

because if we go back to this picture that I showed you at the beginning,

what is she doing with her eyes?

She's definitely narrowing her eyes,

but does she look angry or suspicious? Not really.

We also narrow our eyes when we are determined,

focused, and ready to win. Again,

other parts of our face also change to indicate determination and

focus, the willingness to do whatever need to do to succeed.

And in this photo,

I definitely see that she has narrowed her eyes in determination.

And now we have just one more,

very important emotion to talk about with the eyes, the feeling of sadness,

or simply being overwhelmed with emotion.

Sometimes it might even be happy or joyful emotion.

What do people tend to do when they watch a movie that is really

emotional or when you've read a great book that moves you?

What happens? You get water in your eyes.

And when that happens, we say that you are teary eyed.

You're not crying. You don't have tears coming down your face,

but you do have tears in your eyes. You're teary-eyed.

Let me give you an example sentence.

My mother was teary-eyed as she said goodbye to her family and got on

the plane.

Now that we've talked about the eyebrows and the eyes let's move on to the lips

or mouth someone's smile can convey a variety

of emotions.

Imagine you're in a conversation with a friend or a coworker and they are

going on and on and on about something that you

don't care about. You're not interested in, or maybe you don't even agree with,

but you're trying to be polite. So what do you do with your smile?

What do you notice? Do I look happy with that? Smile?

Not really. It's clearly just a polite,

but not happy smile. And we call this

a tight-lipped smile. Here's an example of how you could use it.

Kim gives Simon a tight lipped smile every time

he starts talking about conspiracy theories. Now,

I want you to think a little bit about how you use your mouth or your lips

when you disapprove or you disagree with someone,

what do you tend to do?

Imagine you're listening to someone and you absolutely disapprove of their

idea, or you disagree with what they're saying.

You might do something like this. Notice.

I'm also narrowing my eyes to indicate some skepticism or

disbelief. Maybe even a bit of anger or frustration.

And

this shape is to purse your lips,

or to have pursed lips.

Here's an example sentence of how you could use pursed lips.

John shook his head and pursed his lips as the contractor told

him that he would be going over budget.

Imagine how you would feel if someone said that a project you're paying

for is going to be over budget,

you would probably disapprove and be rather frustrated. And as a result,

your face might naturally show that disapproval when you purse your lips.

When someone is pursing their lips,

narrowing their eyes and their face looks particularly hard

or severe.

We say that the overall look on their face is a scowl.

That's a really fun word to say,

but not a pleasant look when someone's scowls,

they're furious or extremely angry.

Imagine the look on someone's face when they get really upsetting

news, that makes them angry, not sad but angry.

They might have a very hard, severe face,

very narrowed eyes,

very pursed lips again.

Then this would be a scowl. And finally,

just like we did with the eyes,

we also need to talk about those emotions of sadness or being

upset when that happens, our lips naturally

go down. You probably learned the word frown.

To have a frown on your face, the opposite of a smile.

We also refer to this look as down-turned lips or a

down-turned mouth. For example,

her disappointment was obvious from her down-turned mouth.

Now that we've talked about the eyebrows eyes and mouth,

let's move on to our last examples, which are focused on the chin.

Let's go back to that idea of someone having a scowl on their face.

They're particularly angry.

There's something else that they're very likely to do with their chin.

They're likely to push it out. It's not down,

it's not up, but it's pushed out.

When someone pushes their chin out.

If they've got a scowl on their face or even a look of disbelief

skepticism, they may push their chin out.

And we call this a jutted chin.

I want you to imagine for a moment what a child might do when she

asks for some chocolate or some candy before dinner, and you say, no,

she might get a look of anger on her face,

cross her arms and jut her chin or push it out.

Now, if we move the chin just a little bit,

so that it's lifted or raised,

what does that typically convey?

A lifted chin or raised chin?

This kind of body language tends to be used when someone is feeling

superior or when there is a feeling of arrogance,

for example, with a look of arrogance and a lifted chin,

the manager informed the team that no one was getting any vacation time.

Now, of course,

when someone lifts their chin as a sign of superiority or arrogance,

we tend to interpret that in a very negative way,

but we have to be careful with a lifted chin.

Just like when we talked about narrowed eyes, narrowed,

eyes can be a sign of frustration or anger,

but they can also be a sign of determination.

And the same is true of a lifted chin.

Someone can lift their chin in determination. All right.

And now we're ready for our final expression on this list of 14 different ways

to describe facial expressions.

And I want to go back to those feelings of surprise,

amazement and shock.

We talked about these words with raised eyebrows to raise your

eyebrows in surprise, or raise your eyebrows in bewilderment.

What does someone do with their chin or jaw when they're shocked?

They do the opposite.

They drop their chin or drop their

jaw. For example,

she dropped her jaw in shock when she heard the

news. With these two words,

we can also reverse their order and turn it into an adjective:

jaw-dropping. For example,

we could describe an experience as a jaw-dropping experience.

Maybe you've gone bungee jumping before.

I'm sure that that experience was full of shock,

surprise and amazement.

So you could describe it as a jaw-dropping experience.

And with that you have 14 ways to describe facial expressions in

English. Before we finish today, I want you to practice this.

I know there's a lot of new vocabulary,

so I have a couple of challenge questions for you. Number one,

I want you to look at the picture I shared with you at the beginning.

One more time,

use some of the words or language that you've learned today to describe her

facial expression. How could you do that?

You can share your example with me in the comments below.

And my second challenge question is to find your own examples of

facial expressions. You can do a quick Google search online and again,

try creating some of your own examples sentences using the vocabulary that

you've learned here.

The more you do that quicker and more easily,

these new vocabulary words will get added to your active vocabulary.

As always, if you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know.

And you can tell me in a very simple way,

give this lesson a thumbs up here on YouTube. And while you do that,

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So you never miss one of my Confident English lessons.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.