front
Located at or near the front.
Adjective
- Located at or near the front.
- The front runner was thirty meters ahead of her nearest competitor.
- Pronounced with the highest part of the body of the tongue toward the front of the mouth, near the hard palate (most often describing a vowel).
- The English word dress has a front vowel in most dialects.
- Closest or nearest, of a set of futures contracts which expire at particular times, or of the times they expire; (typically, the front month or front year is the next calendar month or year after the current one).
- Contracts are available for every month in the front year but do not extend over a year. - 1995, Ignacio Mas, Jesús Saá-Requejo, Using Financial Futures in Trading and Risk Management, World Bank Publications, page 11:
- Contract months : March, June, September and December[.] Minimum price fluctuation : 0.005 Index Point (1/2 basis point) equivalent to USD 12.50 per tick for the front-year Eurodollar futures[…] - 2000, The Handbook of...
- The contract that will expire next is called the front contract or front month contract. The other contracts are called the back contracts. In financial and industrial commodities, traders mostly trade only the front...
Synonyms: prompt
Antonyms: back
Origin
From Middle English front, frunt, frount, from Old French front, frunt, from Latin frōns, frontem (“forehead”). Doublet of frons.
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Interjection
- Used to summon a worker on duty, such as a bellhop.
- Front, boy. Front, boy. Front, boy. Front, boy. You four boys show Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth and their seven—-or so—-Irishmen to 503, 504, 505, 506, and 507. - 1948, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey,...
- Harshaw yelled “Front!” again and Miriam started toward him. - 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land:
Related
Noun
- The foremost side of something or the end that faces the direction it normally moves.
- The side of a building with the main entrance.
- Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path[…]. It twisted and turned,[…]and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn. And, back of the lawn, was a big, old-fashioned house, with piazzas stretching in front of it, and...
- A field of activity.
- Becoming more aware of the progress that scientists have made on behavioral fronts can reduce the risk that other natural scientists will resort to mystical agential accounts when they exceed the limits of their own...
- A person or institution acting as the public face of some other, covert group.
- Near-synonyms: frontperson, frontman, front man
- Officially it's a dry-cleaning shop, but everyone knows it's a front for the mafia.
Synonyms: frontperson frontman front man
- The interface or transition zone between two airmasses of different density, often resulting in precipitation. Since the temperature distribution is the most important regulator of atmospheric density, a front almost invariably separates airmasses of different temperature.
- We need to take the clothes off the line. The news reported a front is coming in from the east, and we can expect heavy rain and maybe hail.
- An area where armies are engaged in conflict, especially the line of contact.
- The lateral space occupied by an element measured from the extremity of one flank to the extremity of the other flank.
- The direction of the enemy.
- When a combat situation does not exist or is not assumed, the direction toward which the command is faced.
- A major military subdivision of the Soviet Army.
- Cheek; boldness; impudence.
- A woman's breast.
- […] there was one bare breast sticking out, the tip of it disappearing into Enid's father's mouth. She had told her mother about this in perfect certainty that she had seen it. She said, "One of her fronts was stuck in...
- She thought—imagined, really—that her, well, that her fronts were too big. She grew up, you see, in the flapper era, when it was fashionable for women to have very flat fronts. - 2015, Stephen Birmingham, The Wrong Kind...
- Turning their Backs... ON FRONTS. CONVIVIAL WAITRESS: D... Don't you want to ogle me? SICKO MILLENNIAL: No... I hate breasts! - 2019 October 15, Ward Sutton as Stan Kelly, “Wings And A Pair”, in The Onion:
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active front afront anafront arctic front back to front back-to-front battlefront beachfront bifront blockfront bowfront breakfront bristlefront buttonfront catafront cherry blossom front cold front common front company front confront creekfront firefront fly front forefront
Verb
- To face (on, to); to be pointed in a given direction.
- The great gate fronting to the north was about four feet high, and almost two feet wide, through which I could easily creep. - 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […]...
- The door fronted on a narrow run, like a footbridge over a gully, that filled the gap between the house wall and the edge of the bank. - 1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 35:
- They emerged atop the broad curving steps that fronted on the Street of the Sisters, near the foot of Visenya's Hill. - 1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 312:
- To face, be opposite to.
- After saluting her, he led her to a couch that fronted us, where they both sat down, and the young Genoese helped her to a glass of wine, with some Naples biscuit on a salver. - 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify...
- […]down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in quest of this wonder; it was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate. - 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], Pride and Prejudice: […], volume...
- She sat on a seat under the alders in the cricket ground, and fronted the evening. - 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
- To face up to, to meet head-on, to confront.
- Know you not Gaueston hath store of golde, Which may in Ireland purchase him such friends, As he will front the mightiest of vs all, - 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward...
- What well-appointed leader fronts us here? - c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
- those that have willed to attaine to some greater excellence, have not beene content, at home, and at rest to expect the rigors of fortune[…]; but have rather gone to meet and front her before, and witting-earnestly...
- To adorn with, at the front; to put on the front.
- Three tiers of balconies fronted with roped columns supporting arched openings looked down on the marble hall. - 2001, Terry Goodkind, The Pillars of Creation, page 148:
- To pronounce with the tongue in a front position.
- The velar plosives are often fronted through the influence of a following front vowel, and retracted through the influence of a following back vowel. - 2005, Paul Skandera, Peter Burleigh, A Manual of English Phonetics...
- Finally, the pretonic -e- of this *tsengòrra would have been fronted, yielding *tsingòrra. - 2025, Cid Swanenvleugel, The Pre-Roman Elements of the Sardinian Lexicon, page 214:
- To move (a word or clause) to the start of a sentence (or series of adjectives, etc).
- […] in the clause, only the adjective may be fronted; but if both a past participle and a verbal particle are present, either may be fronted. Topicalization, in which maximal projections are fronted to express...
- A problem facing any syntactic analysis of hyperbaton is that nonconstituent strings are fronted […] In cases where the adjective is fronted with the determiner, the determiner is not doubled […] - 2010, George Melville...
- To act as a front (for); to cover (for).
- Everybody knew Skopas fronted for the fight mob even though he was officially the arena manager. - 2007, Harold Robbins, A Stone for Danny Fisher, page 183:
- To lead or be the spokesperson of (a campaign, organisation etc.).
- Ray Winstone is fronting a campaign for the Football Association that aims to stop pushy parents shouting abuse at their children during the grassroots football season. - 2009 September 1, Mark Sweney, The Guardian:
- Of an alter in a person with multiplicity (especially in dissociative identity disorder): to be the currently actively presenting member of (a system), in control of the person's body.
- Fronting can be understood as a representation of who controls the system, that is, the person to whom you are speaking. Emilia was typically the person fronting her system. - 2018, Eric Yarbrough, Transgender Mental...
- To provide money or financial assistance in advance to.
- I'm prepared to say that I fronted you the money for a business deal with me, and the investment paid off brilliantly. - 2004, Danielle Steele, Ransom, page 104:
- To assume false or disingenuous appearances.
- So when I tell people where I'm from and check their reactions, I know in my heart I'm just frontin’. Because the way and where I lived then pales when compared to the way and where many youths are living today. - 1993...
- What's with these homies dissin' my girl? / Why do they gotta front? - 1994, Rivers Cuomo, “Buddy Holly”, performed by Weezer:
- No matter how hard she fronted in the coming years, Carmiesha could never forget that she had given birth and had a child in this world. Even when she tried not to remember, she still couldn’t forget. - 2006, Noire...
Synonyms: put on airs feign
- To deceive or attempt to deceive someone with false or disingenuous appearances (on).
- You think that you can front when revelation comes? / You can't front on that - 1992, “So What'cha Want”, performed by The Beastie Boys: