frontispiece
Americannoun
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an illustrated leaf preceding the title page of a book.
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Architecture. a façade, or a part or feature of a façade, often highlighted by ornamentation.
noun
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an illustration facing the title page of a book
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the principal façade of a building; front
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a pediment, esp an ornamented one, over a door, window, etc
Etymology
Origin of frontispiece
1590–1600; alteration (conformed to piece ) of earlier frontispice < French < Medieval Latin frontispicium, equivalent to Latin fronti- front + -spicium (combining form representing specere to look at)
Explanation
A frontispiece is an illustration on one of a book's first pages, usually opposite the title page. Some editions of Winnie the Pooh include a map of the Hundred Acre Wood as a frontispiece. Children's books and classics are most likely to have a frontispiece, which is considered a bit old-fashioned today. Your beloved copy of The Wind in the Willows or a collectible edition of Little Women probably include a frontispiece — and the volumes in your Harry Potter collection might as well. In architecture, a frontispiece is something that frames or decorates the entrance to a building. What these two kinds of frontispieces have in common is being located in the front of something.
Vocabulary lists containing frontispiece
Book Words for Book Worms
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The Girl Who Drew Butterflies
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A Room of One's Own
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The only piece in show that isn’t referenced from a film is a laser etching of the Frontispiece cover to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan.
From Forbes • Sep. 10, 2014
A representation of this seal is given as the Frontispiece.
From The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond: A Picture of Monastic Life in the Days of Abbot Samson by Brakelond, Jocelin de
Seal: Frontispiece, 39, 229.Samson, the Precentor: 38; appointed sacrist: 47.Sapiston:
From The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond: A Picture of Monastic Life in the Days of Abbot Samson by Brakelond, Jocelin de
“They saw masses of rocks, boulders and stones, big and little, dart round the corner” Frontispiece.
From The Ascent of the Matterhorn by Whymper, Edward
New and revised Edition, with 20 beautiful Woodcuts, and Frontispiece engraved on steel.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
