A facepalm is the physical gesture

Gesture

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...

 of placing one's hand flat across one's face or lowering one's face into one's hand or hands. The gesture is found in many cultures as a display of frustration, embarrassment, shock, or surprise.

The gesture itself is not of recent origin, and although common, is not culturally universal. However, the word "facepalm" itself, a compound

Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

 of "face" and "palm", may have originated as recently as 2008. It has since been popularized as an Internet meme

Internet meme

The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although the latter concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.-Description:...

 based on an image of the character Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard

Captain Jean-Luc Picard is a Star Trek character portrayed by Patrick Stewart. He appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation and the feature films Star Trek Generations, Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek Nemesis...

 performing the gesture in the Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...

episode "Déjà Q". Images of stockbrokers facepalming have also been widely used in the media to convey the dismay associated with poor financial performance, and a wide variety of regrettable film, business,
and political decisions have been described as facepalms or "facepalm moments". According to Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press

Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

 lexicographer Susie Dent

Susie Dent

Susie Dent is an English lexicographer, well known as the resident dictionary expert and adjudicator on Channel 4’s long-running game show Countdown. As of January 2009, she is the longest-serving member of the current on-screen team, having first appeared on the show in 1992.Dent was educated at...

, this versatility is one of the reasons that the word has been linguistically "successful".

This gesture is not unique to humans. A group of mandrills at the Colchester Zoo

Colchester Zoo

Colchester Zoo is a zoo in Essex, England. The zoo had 547,495 visitors in 2003 and 464,684 in 2004. It features big cat and primate collections as well as many others.Colchester Zoo is supported by a charitable organisation called Action for the Wild...

has adopted a similar gesture to signal the desire to avoid social interaction or to be left alone.