Effrontery is shameless boldness that offends. The sheer effrontery of it, have the effrontery to ask, breathtaking effrontery.
It is almost always said with a kind of appalled admiration, and the fixed phrase is to have the effrontery to do something. The Latin behind it means without a forehead, from the idea that a blushing brow is what shame looks like.
1nouneffronteryShameless boldness that offends.
“He had the effrontery to ask for a pay rise after missing a week of work.”
effrontery is a boldness.
ef-FRONT-ery → doing it right in FRONT of you
He did it right in front of me and did not even look away after.
hooks ontofront
French effronterie comes from a Latin word meaning without a forehead, hence unblushing.
Vulgar Latin
*exfrontātus
Old French
esfronté
French
effronterie
English, today
effrontery
Built from
From late 17th century French effronterie, from effronté (“shameless, insolent”), from Old French esfronté, from Vulgar Latin exfrontātus. Compare Latin effrōns (“barefaced”), from the prefix ex- (“from”) + frōns (“forehead”) (English: front). by surface analysis, ef- + front + -er + -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA