frontish

English

Etymology

From front +‎ -ish.

Adjective

frontish (comparative more frontish, superlative most frontish)

1. (informal, rare) Somewhat to the front.
   • 1962, Clancy Sigal, Going Away: A Report, A Memoir, Boston, M.A.: Houghton Mifflin Company, page 238:

     We were sitting, more or less peaceably, in the frontish rows of the darkened theater when the cops broke in, pouring in from all exits.

   • 1963, Ken Kelman, “Smith Myth”, in P. Adams Sitney, editor, Film Culture Reader (Praeger Film Books), New York, N.Y., Washington, D.C.: Praeger Publishers, published 1970, page 284:

     When the first show was over, a clique, a claque of six or so, back on the west side applauded. And I, all alone, east of the aisle up frontish, applauded, amid the numb and blind.

   • 2004, Sheila Kogan, Step by Step: A Complete Movement Education Curriculum, second edition, Champaign, I.L.: Human Kinetics, →ISBN, page 80:

     "Help!" I'll hear from teachers. "My children move forward, backward, and turning OK, but I can't get them to go straight sideways. It always looks frontish."

   • 2018, Delilah S. Dawson, Kevin Hearne, Kill the Farm Boy, New York, N.Y.: Del Rey, →ISBN, page 267:

     Garden path or not, she'd found a narrow porch and a door that looked frontish enough.

   • 2019 May 13, Jim D, “road trip”, in alt.music.makers.soloact‎^[1] (Usenet):

     We had good center frontish seats and so I could frame the group very well in the camera.

2. (phonology) Of a sound: produced near the front of the mouth.
   • 2006, Thomas E[dward] Payne, Exploring Language Structure: A Student's Guide, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 141:

     This rule makes sense because palatal sounds are frontish themselves, and assimilation rules are the most common type of morphophonemic rule (see chapter 3).

3. (Trinidad and Tobago) Assertive, pushy.
   • 2015, Sabrina Ramnanan, Nothing Like Love, Toronto, Ont.: Anchor Canada, published 2017, →ISBN, page 223:

     Gloria snorted. "Sangita is one frontish woman."

References

• “frontish, adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.