also black-face, 1868 (the phrase itself seems not to have been common in print before 1880s) in reference to a performance style, originated in U.S., where (typically) non-black performers used burnt cork or other theatrical make-up to blacken their faces, from black (adj.) + face (n.). The thing itself is older, from the 1830s.
The old-time black face song-and-dance man has disappeared from the stage. At one time no minstrel or variety company was complete without a team of these stage favorites; and who can ever forget their reception at every performance? It made no difference whether they represented the genteel or the plantation negro, they were always welcome, and as a rule were the big feature of the bill. [William E. "Judge" Horton, "About Stage Folks," 1902]
also prosopopoeia, 1560s, from Latin prosopopoeia, from Greek prosōpopoiia "the putting of speeches into the mouths of others," from prosōpon "person; face; dramatic character," etymologically "that which is toward the eyes," from pros "to" (see pros-) + ōps "eye, face" (from PIE root *okw- "to see") + poiein "to make, form, do" (see poet). Generally, a rhetorical figure in which an imaginary or absent person, or abstraction or inanimate character, is made to speak or act. Sometimes Englished as prosopopy (1570s).
mid-14c., "a shame, a disgrace" (a sense now obsolete), also "a censure to one's face, a rebuke addressed to a person," from Old French reprove "reproach, rejection," verbal noun from reprover "to blame, accuse" (see reprove).
"a nose turned upwards at the tip," 1778, from pug (n.) based on fancied similarity to the nose of either the monkey or the dog. Related: Pug-nosed (1791). Pug-face is attested by 1768.
type face, 1930; the type was cut in 1929 based on one used in 1496 by Aldus Manutius in an edition of a work by Italian poet and scholar Pietro Bembo.
