frontispiece

UK/ˈfɹʌn.tɪsˌpiːs/US/ˈfɹʌn.tɪsˌpis/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly written

Other forms: frontispieces

A frontispiece is an illustration facing the title page. A portrait frontispiece.

It is the first thing a reader sees and was often the only picture in the book. A frontispiece of the author was standard for a century and now looks quaint.

Definitions of frontispiece

1nounfrontispieceAn illustration facing the title page.C2
“The frontispiece was an engraving of the harbour.”

frontispiece is an illustration.

Where it comes from

Latin frons, forehead, plus specere, to look at; it first meant the front of a building, and the spelling was pulled towards piece later.

Medieval Latin
frontispicium
Italian
frontespizio
Middle French
frontispice
English, today
frontispiece

From Middle French frontispice, from Italian frontespizio or Medieval Latin frontispicium, from Latin frōns + -spic- + -ium. Spelling altered due to folk etymology, influenced by piece.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Libraries & Museums

Practise this word

frontispiece in the wild

The Ancient of Days is a design by William Blake, originally published as the frontispiece to the 1794 work Europe a Prophecy.
The Ancient of Days
In some ancient editions or in modern luxury editions the frontispiece features thematic or allegorical elements, in others is the author's portrait that appears as the frontispiece.
Book frontispiece
In medieval illuminated manuscripts, a presentation miniature showing the book or text being presented (by whom and to whom varies) was often used as a frontispiece.
Book frontispiece
Early printings had cover art and a frontispiece by artist Jack Gaughan; later printings replaced the cover art (but not the frontispiece) with new art by Michael Whelan.
Spell of the Witch World
Traditional decorative frontispieces are rarely used in the designing of post-modern buildings.
Frontispiece (architecture)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.

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