adjective

• Very pale with shock, fear, or illness.

  ‘it was several minutes before he emerged, ashen-faced’

  More example sentences

  • ‘With all around him looking pale and ashen-faced, Guy Hedderwick put his best foot forward, racing across the smouldering coals.’
  • ‘He appeared on television screens worldwide, bare chested and ashen-faced, wearing a large white bandage around his head.’
  • ‘One ashen-faced senior figure said: ‘We are standing around here bemused and astonished.’’
  • ‘The helpers were moving about the plane, chatting and reassuring everyone, and suddenly ashen-faced people who had been gripping their arm-rests were smiling, talking and relaxing.’
  • ‘One ashen-faced businessman said to me: ‘Things will be different from now on, won't they?’’
  • ‘Instead, he was ashen-faced over what he described as ‘the biggest miscarriage of justice imaginable’.’
  • ‘At this, Sarah gasped and sank back ashen-faced in her chair.’
  • ‘Peasants huddle terrified in hovels while ashen-faced statesmen race hither and thither before the storm clouds of history.’
  • ‘The small old men exited from the dramatic scene ashen-faced.’
  • ‘He was ashen-faced but impassive as the verdicts were brought in.’
  • ‘He had emerged from his fairly elaborate morning ablutions looking ashen-faced.’
  • ‘‘I had to go somewhere quickly,’ he told the ashen-faced judge.’
  • ‘Swallowing hard, the ashen-faced girl continued, her ‘composed’ voice merely an emotionless monotone.’
  • ‘A couple of ashen-faced colleagues are recovering after making that mistake on a ride from the airport.’
  • ‘Just then, the door flew open and Mara, ashen-faced and tottering came out, closely followed by a radiant Rakael.’
  • ‘I drove home ashen-faced, where I took a bunch of codeine and paced around the house waiting for it to work.’
  • ‘People on the morning train looked moodier and more ashen-faced than usual.’
  • ‘She looked at him then, and saw he was ashen-faced.’
  • ‘He looked down slowly, ashen-faced and shaking.’
  • ‘Deimos was still ashen-faced, though coping well.’

  Synonyms

  pale, wan, pasty, grey, leaden, colourless, sallow, pallid, white, waxen, ghostly