frontline
Americanadjective
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located or designed to be used at a military front line.
a frontline ambulance helicopter.
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of, relating to, or involving the forefront in any action, activity, or field.
a frontline TV reporter.
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highly experienced or proficient in the performance of one's duties.
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of or relating to essential work that depends on in-person interactions and may involve some risk, especially policing, healthcare, emergency services, public transit, grocery, warehouse, and delivery work.
Congress is taking up a bill that would guarantee sick leave and hazard pay to frontline workers.
Etymology
Origin of frontline
First recorded in 1910–15; front (in the military sense) + line 1 ( def. )
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.
Gavi said that around 55,000 frontline workers in Ituri and North Kivu have received Ervebo through previous preventive vaccination campaigns.
From Barron's ● Aug. 7, 2026
One reads, "Be Brave Like Kherson", the southern city now on the frontline of Russia's invasion.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
For more than a decade it has been a frontline, the first Greek soil that exhausted, terrified people touch when they cross from Turkey in boats that were never built for open water.
From Salon ● Aug. 5, 2026
Farage left frontline politics in 2021 and embarked on a broadcasting career.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
Out beyond the frontline trenches, no man’s land separating the opposing armies might be anywhere from a mile or more across to barely twenty-five yards wide.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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.
