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Okay, of course I've used different popular online dictionaries and the translation makes sense in the most cases.

Sometimes I find usages of 'though' where I don't get the meaning of the word.

An example I've found on twitter

That face, though. [Image of a dog looking weird]

The tweet came without any context or conversation.

When I translate this example to my native language - german - this makes absolutely no sense. At least for me.

So is the above usage some kind of slang?
What is the meaning of though in this case?

For the completeness an example that makes absolutely sense for me

Though he tried very hard, he failed the course.

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    Though means however. It's meant to signify a pause for thought about the face. It's slangy; it's also a meme, often for a grumpy-cat kind of face. Sep 7, 2014 at 4:01
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    Without context, the context is the statement. Assuming everything about the image is "normal" or "expected" or "cute" or "appropriate", the object in question (face), however, should be looked at differently (usually with a negative connotation). Consider a picture of a well-groomed man in a tuxedo with a glow-in-the-dark necktie. "That tie, though". A picture is worth a thousand words. It just takes three to point out a specific feature.
    – SrJoven
    Sep 7, 2014 at 4:09
  • A problem is that people on social media seem to use though in this manner to indicate "not a fan" and "fan" ambiguously. For example, you will see a picture of a woman with a tattoo and two people will write "that tattoo, though", and you have no idea whether it is positive or negative. I've seen cases where they clearly meant both.
    – Tommy
    Sep 9, 2014 at 2:47

1 Answer 1

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In this case, though is being used as an adverb.

As my New Oxford American Dictionary tells it:

though: adv. however (indicating that a factor qualifies or imposes restictions on what was previously said).

So in this case, you can think of it as such:

  • Person A: [Picture of dog] (thinking: Man this dog is ugly!)
  • Person B: Cute face though (thinking: Yeah, he's ugly but/however his face is really cute)

In other words, he's ugly, but we're going to limit his ugliness to everything but his face.

In your example, since person B just says "that face though", it's left to the reader to infer the cuteness/silliness/ugliness/craziness that is different between the face and the rest of the dog — presumably evident enough from the picture.

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  • In your context it makes sense. But the example I've posted above was without any additional context.
    – Brettetete
    Sep 7, 2014 at 3:59
  • @Brettetete If the person said it and posted the picture, then they're handling both parts of the psuedo-conversation I gave — they're saying that the dog is [silly/ugly/cute] (whatever is implied by the picture) except for his face, which has some other quality (normally the opposite of the implied quality) Sep 7, 2014 at 4:02

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