'baldfaced' originates from English, specifically as a compound of 'bald' + 'face', where 'bald' meant 'having hair missing; bare' and 'face' meant 'the front part of the head.'

'baldfaced' developed in Early Modern English as the hyphenated compound 'bald-faced' (used in phrases such as 'bald-faced lie'); over time the hyphenation and spacing have varied and it is also found as 'baldfaced' or 'bald faced' in modern usage.

Initially the elements referred literally to 'a bare face,' but by the 17th–18th centuries the compound took on a figurative sense of being plain or undisguised; it later came to mean 'brazen' or 'shameless' in common usage.