Greasepaint is a thick, soft paint that actors put on their face or body before they go on stage. It is not the light cream you might use every day. It sits heavy on the skin so the colour still shows under bright theatre lights, and so it does not dry and crack while you move and talk. The old kind was mixed with grease — oil or fat — which is how it got the name; though actually a lot of stage make-up today is not really greasy any more, but people still say greasepaint. You hear it with clowns, with people in plays, and in the phrase “put on the greasepaint”, meaning to become a performer for the night. It is a theatre word, not a word for ordinary life.