deadpan \DED-pan\, adjective:
1. Marked by or accomplished with a careful pretense of seriousness or calm detachment.
2. Displaying no emotional or personal involvement.
"He sat down on the top step with a rare deadpan expression, his best attempt yet at a poker face."
-- Carol O'Connell, Shell Game
"She had instructed the kids to remain deadpan, because she did not want to paint from a shot in which they were mugging."
-- Dean Koontz, What the Night Knows
Deadpan is a coinage from the 1930s combining "dead" and the sense of "pan" referring to the head or face.
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