po-faced

Uncertain, probably from po, abbreviated slang based on French pot de chambre (“chamber pot”), after the distasteful expression anyone would adopt upon being presented with a full one. Perhaps similarly from pooh; perhaps influenced by poker-faced. Also possibly “poor-faced”.^[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈpəʊ.feɪst/

po-faced (comparative more po-faced, superlative most po-faced)

1. (British) Wearing a particularly stern and disapproving expression; humourless; priggish. [from 1930s]
   • 1993, Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting, Times Film School, page 68:

     Nae hassle man . . . I'll git oaf the skag, and Saughton's barry fir hash. It'll be a piece ay pish likesay . . . he sais, as he's escorted away by a po–faced labdick.

   • 2007 August 16, Kelvin Holdsworth, “Edinburgh?”, in Thurible.net‎^[1]:

     I mean, you would never guess if you came up from the South to Edinburgh in August that it is such a po-faced, humourless place, now would you?

2. (British) Poker-faced.

• po-face