face away

face away

To turn one's head away from someone or something, so as to look elsewhere. I gashed my hand pretty badly last night and had to face away from all the blood.
See also: away, face
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

face away (from someone or something)

to turn away from someone or something. Please face away from me while I change clothes. I'll face away. You go right ahead.
See also: away, face
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • draw away
  • draw away from (someone or something)
  • deflect
  • deflect (something) away from (someone or something)
  • deflect away from
  • drag (someone or something) away from (something)
  • cringe
  • cringe away from
  • cringe away from (someone or something)
  • do away with
References in classic literature
"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will.
Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss Havisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with her pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me, - often at such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last.
Blackguards!" shrieked the old man, turning his face away from her.
"I'm tired; I think not." Her glance wandered from his face away toward the Gulf, whose sonorous murmur reached her like a loving but imperative entreaty.
`Why, sure, Jim.' A moment later she drew her face away and whispered indignantly, `Why, Jim!
Now came the dead friends of his youth, and his white-bearded father, with a saint-like frown, and his mother turning her face away as she passed by Ghost of a mother -- thinnest fantasy of a mother -- methinks she might yet have thrown a pitying glance towards her son!
They tried to be kind to her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs.
She was halfway over in her turn, her face away from the lion, when he suddenly turned his great head and fastened his eyes upon her.
She sat down again, and turned her face away from me.
He swung a frightful raking blow for Tarzan that would have wiped his face away had it landed, but it did not land, for Tarzan ducked beneath it and closed, his long knife ready in one strong hand--the knife of his dead father, of the father he never had known.
But all I thought of then was to get his face away, and I handed him my money.
The tears stood in Oliver's eyes as he recalled the scene which was the beginning of so much happiness; and the gentleman turned his face away, and remained silent, for some minutes.
"No, you didn't, you knew perfectly well I never cared for anyone but Jo," Laurie said that in his old, impetuous tone, and turned his face away as he spoke.
She looked anxious and uneasy; she turned her face away on the sofa pillow -- turned it suddenly, as if she was in pain.
The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself.