FRONTIER

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does frontier mean? 

• FRONTIER (noun)
  The noun FRONTIER has 3 senses:

1. a wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country

2. an international boundary or the area (often fortified) immediately inside the boundary

3. an undeveloped field of study; a topic inviting research and development

  Familiarity information: FRONTIER used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FRONTIER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Context example:

the individualism of the frontier in Andrew Jackson's day

Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):

wild; wilderness (a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An international boundary or the area (often fortified) immediately inside the boundary

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):

bound; boundary; bounds (the line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something)

Instance hyponyms:

Triple Frontier (the border area where Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay meet; an active South American center for contraband and drug trafficking and money laundering; a suspected locale for Islamic extremist groups)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An undeveloped field of study; a topic inviting research and development

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Context example:

he worked at the frontier of brain science

Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):

bailiwick; discipline; field; field of study; study; subject; subject area; subject field (a branch of knowledge)

 Context examples 

In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay?

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

From all sides the free companions had trooped in, until not less than twelve thousand of these veteran troops were cantoned along the frontiers of Navarre.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For the queen, whom I always attended, never went farther when she accompanied the king in his progresses, and there staid till his majesty returned from viewing his frontiers.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

These were that Lord John had found himself some years before in that no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between Peru, Brazil, and Columbia.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Such waves are what led scientists to the conclusion, in the fall of 2013, that Voyager had indeed left our sun's bubble, entering a new frontier.

(Sun sends more 'tsunami waves' to Voyager 1, NASA)

This frontier image provides a sneak peak of the early universe, and gives us a taste of what the James Webb Space Telescope will be capable of seeing in greater detail when it launches in 2018.

(NASA’s Hubble Looks to the Final Frontier, NASA)

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

No stream could be more convenient for navigation, since the prevailing wind is south-east, and sailing boats may make a continuous progress to the Peruvian frontier, dropping down again with the current.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On either hand gray walls and square grim keeps peeped out at every few miles from amid the forests while the few villages which they passed were all ringed round with rude walls, which spoke of the constant fear and sudden foray of a wild frontier land.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)