Facepalm
A facepalm (sometimes also face-palm or face palm) is the physical gesture of placing one's hand flat across one's face or lowering one's face into one's hand or hands. The gesture is often exaggerated by giving the motion more force and making a slapping noise when the hand comes in contact with the face. The gesture is found in many cultures as a display of frustration, disappointment, exasperation, embarrassment, horror,shock, surprise, or sarcasm.
Origins
According to Macmillan Dictionary, the word "facepalm" first appeared around 2006, though another source has an earliest citation of 2001. The gesture itself is not of recent origin and, although common, is not culturally universal. Images of stockbrokers facepalming have also been widely used in the media to convey the dismay associated with poor financial performance, and a wide variety of regrettable film, business, and political decisions have been described as "facepalms" or "facepalm moments". According to Oxford University Press lexicographer Susie Dent, this versatility is one of the reasons that the word has been linguistically "successful". It was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in August 2011.
