dead-panadj.n.adv.v.

1928 N.Y. Times 11 Mar. viii. 6/1 Dead pan, playing a rôle with expressionless face.

1929 Variety 17 Apr. 51/3 They clicked better at the Palace where the intimacy heightened the dead-pan comic's expression.

1939 I. Baird Waste Heritage i. 5 Matt's eyes lost their cold deadpan look.

1942 Tablet 19 Sept. 135/2 Mr. Attlee and Sir Stafford Cripps did their best to assume what in America is called a ‘dead-pan’ expression.

1947 People 22 June 2/6 Perhaps that accounts for Flynn's dead-pan immobility, his flat emotionless voice, and the air of bored indifference.

1949 Times Lit. Suppl. 5 Aug. 502/3 An official career far more eventful than most, and one oddly belying his mild demeanour and dead-pan wit.

1950 Manch. Guardian Weekly 23 Mar. 3/2 A dispatch from Washington reporting in dead-pan outline Mr. Acheson's Berkeley speech.

1953 L. A. G. Strong Personal Remarks 256 Malcolm Scott was severe, suety, impassive; what nowadays would be called dead-pan.

1957 Sunday Times 3 Mar. 3/3 For what is known as ‘dead pan’ humour no one can challenge Miss Jean Mann, whose facial expression gives no warning of the thrust to come.

1965 Listener 20 May 745/3 The superbly dead-pan warning: ‘The publication of this book does not directly or indirectly imply that it can be regarded as authorized for use in churches.’

1933 ‘N. West’ Miss Lonelyhearts (1949) 34 He practiced a trick used much by moving-picture comedians— the dead pan. No matter how fantastic or excited his speech, he never changed his expression.

1937 E. Linklater Juan in China xxi. 282 I told him it wasn't his..and all I got was a dead pan.

1939 N. Coward Words & Music 11, in Second Play Parade 159 Now the wife of an Acrobat Is the ‘Dead Pan’ of the troupe.

1943 P. Cheyney You can always Duck iii. 53 This bar-tender is an interestin' sorta guy. A dead pan. Nothin' seems to worry him.

1951 E. Hyams Sylvester xx. 96 Eyes..set in round, flabby..faces, the dead-pans of a caste of men who..had given up their humanity.

1957 J. Braine Room at Top iv. 34 The millhand with the Alan Ladd deadpan.

1933 Runyon in Collier's 28 Oct. 36/3 She does not scowl or anything else, but only looks very dead-pan.

1944 ‘P. Quentin’ Puzzle for Puppets xviii. 139 He said that completely dead-pan. For a moment I didn't take it in. Then I grinned.

1962 New Yorker 10 Mar. 157/1 3 claims no authority and merely records, mostly deadpan, what in fact every Tom, Dick, and Harry is now doing..to the language.

1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §275/2 Dead-pan, to maintain an expressionless face.

1959 N. Marsh False Scent (1960) ii. 40 ‘After this,’ she said slowly, dead-panning her voice to a tortured monotone, ‘there is only one thing for me to do.’

1962 B. Knox Little Drops of Blood iv. 87 Moss dead-panned. ‘I don't mind. Of course, I'll need to phone Miss Murdoch and disappoint her, but ——’ he winked.