Bold-Faced Lie

Make sure to refer to someone as a bald-faced liar rather than a bold-faced liar if you ever wish to accuse them of speaking an egregious and shameless untruth. The second choice appears to make some sense at first. You might picture someone deceiving openly and without remorse if they had a brazen or bold expression on their face, hence the term "bold-faced." The right phrase, however, is "bald-faced," which refers to a face that is entirely exposed due to lack of facial hair, a mask, or anything similar.

If you really need a substitute, consider using barefaced falsehood. Actually, it is how the phrase was first used and has been around since the early 1800s. But for whatever reason, American publications began adopting bald-faced lies about the middle of the 20th century. In that instance, the substitution was appropriate since bold-faced has a distinct meaning than the two terms used, whereas the two words still had the same meaning.