Other forms: fronts
The front of something is the side that faces you. The front of the house with the letterbox in it, the front of the queue, the front of a shirt where the buttons run.
In weather, a front is the moving boundary where one mass of air meets another, and it is what brings the change: a cold front comes through overnight and the puddles freeze. In war, the front is where the fighting is, which gives front line and the Western Front. A front can also be a disguise - a shop that exists to hide a criminal business, or the cheerful front someone puts on while they are frightened. Mind the two prepositions, because they part company: in front of the car means outside it, ahead of the bumper, while in the front of the car means inside, in the seats. Up front means paid or said in advance.
1nounsideThe side or part of something that faces forward.~31%
“There is a narrow strip of garden at the front of the house.”
2nounfrontThe boundary where two masses of air of different temperature meet.~2%
“A warm front is moving in from the Atlantic tonight.”
3nounareaThe area where fighting takes place in a war.~52%
“Letters from the front took three weeks to arrive.”
4nounbusinessA business or activity used to hide an illegal one.~2%
“The record shop turned out to be a front for something far more profitable.”
5nounoutwardAn outward manner that hides what someone really feels.~2%
“She kept up a cheerful front until the door closed behind them.”
6adjectiveforwardAt or in the forward part.~11%
“The front door sticks whenever it rains.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 13 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense (4 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Front came through Middle English and Old French from Latin frons, which meant forehead. Every later sense grows out of that picture: the front of a building is the face it turns to the street, and the front of an army is the part that meets the enemy first. Confront and frontier came into English the same way, from the same Latin word.
Latin
frōns — forehead
Old French
front
Middle English
front
English, today
front
From Middle English front, frunt, frount, from Old French front, frunt, from Latin frōns (“forehead”). a doublet of frons.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA