frente

Forms

frente f (plural frentes)^[1] Old Spanish fruente or fruent is the form of Berceo, Juan Ruiz, Juan Manuel, López de Ayala and the Libro de Alexandre, and Alfonso de Palencia still used it in 1490;^[2][3] frente is first in Nebrija.^[2][3] In the senses “forehead” and “face” the noun is feminine (la frente); in the military, political and weather senses it is masculine (el frente), and for a façade either gender is used.^[4][1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish fruente, inherited from Latin frōns (“forehead, brow; front”).^[2][3][4][1] The Old Spanish diphthong ue was reduced to e after the r, a regular change after a liquid that Corominas compares with culebra.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese fronte, Galician fronte, Catalan front, French front, Italian fronte and Romanian frunte.^[5][1] Portuguese has also taken frente from Spanish.^[1] Classical Latin frōns was usually feminine, and Spanish kept that gender, as did Portuguese, Italian and Romanian.^[2] French, Occitan, Catalan, Romansh and Sardinian chose the masculine, which is found already in Plautus.^[2] Spanish took the masculine from French as a term of fortification; it then spread to other military uses and, later, to politics.^[2] The Breve diccionario dates the masculine to 1915.^[3]

The origin of frōns is unknown.^[6][7] De Vaan rejects the Celtic and Germanic words for “side” or “steep” compared by earlier scholars as too vague in meaning.^[6] He also finds a link with Proto-Indo-European *h₃bʰruH- (“eyebrow”) tempting but hard to square with the suffix, and calls his own idea of a form related to frendō (“to gnash the teeth”) very speculative.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is fruente in a charter of 1124 in Oelschläger's list.^[2] The earliest CDH hit is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where David slings a stone at Goliath: „puso la una en la fonda, e diol en la fruente e matol” “he put one in the sling, and hit him on the forehead and killed him”.^[8] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223) is the first text with no later copy: an animal with a horn „en medio dela fruente” “in the middle of the forehead”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the forehead, the front part of a thing, the face and the front rank of an army.^[9] Covarrubias in 1611 says that a man carries much of his mind written on his forehead, and that a smooth, unwrinkled brow means shamelessness, a phrase from Scripture.^[10] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds the façade of a building and the blank space left at the head of a letter, which it takes from Covarrubias.^[11] Terreros gives “boldness, nerve”.^[12] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the face of a bastion and, in poetry, the face.^[13]

Salvá in 1846 thought the façade, the military rank and the fortification sense should be masculine.^[14] The Academy's 1869 edition marks the façade as of either gender and the military rank as masculine.^[14][15] The masculine now also covers a coalition of parties, as in el Frente Popular, the battle front and the weather front.^[4][7]

The adverb frente is later than enfrente (c. 1600): the Academy in 1817 and 1843 still calls it colloquial, and the phrase frente a is probably short for the older frente a frente de (1615, in the Quijote).^[2][3] The adverbial frente a frente “face to face” is found already in 1582.^[2]

Timeline

• 1124 – fruente in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses fruente for the forehead.^[8]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo, the first text not known from a later copy.^[8]
• 1280 – the General estoria uses it for the front rank of an army.^[9]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia still writes fruente.^[2]
• 1495 – the form frente appears, in Nebrija.^[3][2]
• 1582 – the phrase frente a frente “face to face”.^[2]
• c. 1600 – the compound enfrente.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes what the forehead reveals of the mind.^[10]
• 1615 – frente a frente de in the second part of the Quijote.^[2][3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary has the fortification sense and the phrase frente a.^[13][3]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary marks the military sense as masculine.^[15]
• 1915 – the masculine el frente, after French front.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (feminine) The forehead, brow: the upper part of the face between the temples, from the eyebrows to where the skull curves back: Se secó el sudor de la frente.^[4][1]
2. (feminine) The face, countenance.^[4]
3. (feminine) The front part of something, as against its sides.^[4]
4. (feminine) The blank space left at the top of a letter or other document.^[4]
5. (masculine) A coalition of political parties or organizations: el Frente Popular.^[4][7]
6. (masculine, meteorology) A weather front: the moving boundary between two air masses of different temperature and humidity.^[4][1]
7. (masculine, military) Each of the two walls that meet to close a bastion and form its angle.^[4]
8. (masculine, military) The front rank of troops drawn up or encamped.^[4]
9. (masculine, military) The line or zone where two armies face each other for some time: Su abuelo murió en el frente.^[4][1]
10. (masculine or feminine) The façade of a building; the obverse of a coin; the first page of a book.^[4]

Adverb

1. Opposite; against, in opposition.^[4]

Word family

• frontal
• frontero
• frontera
• frontón
• afrontar
• afrentar
• afrenta
• confrontar
• enfrente
• enfrentar
• frentera
• frentón

Related words

• frontispicio
• Latin frons
• Portuguese fronte

Usage notes

Common phrases are frente a “opposite; as against”, frente a frente “face to face”, hacer frente “to face up to” and al frente de “in charge of”.^[16][1] No tener dos dedos de frente means to have little sense.^[1][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 953
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. frente
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. frente
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. frons
6. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. frente
8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. frente
9. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. frente
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 864
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 795
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 186
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 426
14. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 531
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 369
16. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 1044
17. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. frente