"pull a face" meaning in English

See pull a face in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-pull a face.ogg Forms: pulls a face [present, singular, third-person], pulling a face [participle, present], pulled a face [participle, past], pulled a face [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} pull a face (third-person singular simple present pulls a face, present participle pulling a face, simple past and past participle pulled a face)
  1. (idiomatic) To make an abnormal facial expression, either intentionally or because of an emotion. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: make a face Related terms: gurn, pull faces
    Sense id: en-pull_a_face-en-verb-rxtPmNyw Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English predicates, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls a face",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling a face",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled a face",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled a face",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull a face (third-person singular simple present pulls a face, present participle pulling a face, simple past and past participle pulled a face)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              48
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 September 14, Daniel Boffey, “Racism or celebration? What England’s flag-hoisters are saying – and what others are hearing”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "At the back of the cafe, McCormack pulled a face. The former leader of the English Defence League was not for her.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make an abnormal facial expression, either intentionally or because of an emotion."
      ],
      "id": "en-pull_a_face-en-verb-rxtPmNyw",
      "links": [
        [
          "abnormal",
          "abnormal"
        ],
        [
          "facial",
          "facial"
        ],
        [
          "expression",
          "expression"
        ],
        [
          "emotion",
          "emotion"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To make an abnormal facial expression, either intentionally or because of an emotion."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "gurn"
        },
        {
          "word": "pull faces"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "make a face"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull a face.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f6/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull a face"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "pulls a face",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulling a face",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled a face",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "pulled a face",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "pull a face (third-person singular simple present pulls a face, present participle pulling a face, simple past and past participle pulled a face)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "gurn"
    },
    {
      "word": "pull faces"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              35,
              48
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 September 14, Daniel Boffey, “Racism or celebration? What England’s flag-hoisters are saying – and what others are hearing”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:",
          "text": "At the back of the cafe, McCormack pulled a face. The former leader of the English Defence League was not for her.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To make an abnormal facial expression, either intentionally or because of an emotion."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "abnormal",
          "abnormal"
        ],
        [
          "facial",
          "facial"
        ],
        [
          "expression",
          "expression"
        ],
        [
          "emotion",
          "emotion"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To make an abnormal facial expression, either intentionally or because of an emotion."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-pull a face.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/f/f6/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/En-au-pull_a_face.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "make a face"
    }
  ],
  "word": "pull a face"
}

Download raw JSONL data for pull a face meaning in English (1.8kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-09-27 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-09-20 using wiktextract (fc15ba6 and 1ab82da). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.