laugh on the other side of one's face

English

Alternative forms

• laugh on the other side of one's mouth
• laugh on the wrong side of one's face
• laugh on the wrong side of one's mouth
• laugh out of the other side of one's face
• laugh out of the other side of one's mouth (US)
• laugh out of the wrong side of one's face
• laugh out of the wrong side of one's mouth

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

laugh on the other side of one's face (third-person singular simple present laughs on the other side of one's face, present participle laughing on the other side of one's face, simple past and past participle laughed on the other side of one's face)

1. (UK, intransitive, informal) To experience discomfiture after displaying cockiness.

   You'll be laughing on the other side of your face when the police find out you've been lying to them.

   • 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II:

     Socialism? Ha! ha! ha! Where’s the money to come from? Ha! ha! ha!... Hitler will at any rate go down in history as the man who made the City of London laugh on the wrong side of its face. For the first time in their lives the comfortable were uncomfortable, the professional optimists had to admit that there was something wrong.

Translations

Translations

• Finnish: hymy hyytyy
• French: faire moins le malin (fr)
• Irish: gáire Sheáin dóite a dhéanamh
• Latvian: pēc lieliem smiekliem nāk gaužas asaras
• Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see wstydzić się impf

See also

• have the last laugh
• he who laughs last laughs best
• talk/speak out of both sides of one's mouth

Further reading

• “be laughing on the other side of your face”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “you ll be laughing on the other side of your face” (US) / “you ll be laughing on the other side of your face” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “laugh on the other side of one's face”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “somebody will be laughing on the other side of their face” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “laugh on the other side of ones face”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “laugh on the other side of one's face”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.