From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishlose facelose faceASHAMEDif you lose face, you do something which makes you seem weak, stupid etc, and which makes people respect you less He doesn’t want to back down (=accept defeat in an argument) and risk losing face. → face
Examples from the Corpus
lose face• The government suffered a severe loss of face when details of the scandal emerged.• Rather than giving in and losing face, she carried on her needless quarrel with her father.• The country is asked to pay the price of the Government's overriding concern that they should not lose face.• They want to negotiate a ceasefire without either side losing face.• Senior managers can not afford to lose face too often and will bide their time to re-assert their authority.• Better to lose face and be open about not understanding the cryptic message, than to lose sleep at night over it.• No government likes to lose face like that.• The vital thing was not to lose face.• Eventually the policeman was prepared to lose face.• Criticism should never cause the recipient to lose face, inner dignity or self-respect.• Thus the other follows because she does not want to lose face with her white friend.• The leaders need to find a way of compromising without losing face among their supporters. 