fronted

Verb

front (third-person singular simple present fronts, present participle fronting, simple past and past participle fronted)

1. (dated, intransitive) 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. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput)
2. (transitive) 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 the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC
3. (transitive) 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 the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC...
4. (transitive) 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
5. (intransitive, transitive) 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 and Phonology, page 48
6. (transitive) 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 pragmatics such as contrast, emphasis, ...2001, Arthur J. Holmer, Jan-Olof Svantesson, Åke Viberg, Proceedings of the 18th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics

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