Meaning & use
faze
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Meaning
verbtransitiveinformal
To worry or upset someone so much that they lose their calm or confidence.
Grammar: Usually in negatives and with an object: nothing fazes her, it didn't faze him.
Patterns
- faze someone
- not faze someone
- be fazed by something
The noisy crowd did not faze the young singer.
Nothing seems to faze our teacher, however chaotic the class gets.
He was not fazed by the sudden change of plans.
Word forms
| third person singular | fazes |
|---|---|
| past tense | fazed |
| past participle | fazed |
| -ing form | fazing |
Common combinations
- doesn't faze
- A little bad weather doesn't faze her.
- nothing fazes
- Nothing fazes him, even when the deadlines pile up.
- fazed by
- She was fazed by the size of the audience.
- seem unfazed
- The goalkeeper seemed unfazed by the pressure.
- barely fazed
- The pilot was barely fazed by the turbulence.
Synonyms and how they differ
- unsettle
- Unsettle describes a lingering uneasy feeling, whereas faze is usually about a brief loss of composure.
- rattle
- Rattle is also informal and suggests making someone nervous or flustered, often in competition.
- disconcert
- Disconcert is more formal and implies confusing someone so they feel awkward.
- daunt
- Daunt suggests discouraging someone by making a task seem too difficult.
Opposites
Word family
- fazed adjective
- worried or disturbed
- unfazed adjective
- not disturbed or worried
Commonly confused: faze or phase?
faze vs phase
A phase is a stage in a process, and has the same pronunciation as faze but a different spelling and meaning.
Practice
The announcer didn't ___ when the microphone suddenly stopped working.
Choose one answer.
Faze means to disturb or upset someone, so the sentence says the announcer stayed calm. Phase sounds the same but is not a verb meaning to upset.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “faze”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.