fronts

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of front.

   The army was forced to fight on two distant fronts at once.

   Weather maps showed several fronts converging over the coast.

   Note

   A regular -s plural that carries every sense of the singular noun: building faces, battle lines, weather boundaries, and organizations serving as cover for covert groups. The plural is at home in military and weather talk, as in fighting on two fronts or several fronts converging, where each front is a separate line or boundary. The same spelling is also the present-tense verb, as in a hotel that fronts the harbor.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of front.

   The new hotel fronts directly onto the harbor.

   She fronts the charity's public campaign and handles all the press.

   Note

   The form used after he, she or it, and it covers a wide spread of meanings. A building fronts onto a street, a person fronts a challenge head-on, and a linguist fronts a vowel or moves a clause to the start of a sentence. The intransitive facing sense, used with on or to, is dated. The confronting, adorning and linguistic uses are transitive and current.

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