FRONTISPIECE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does frontispiece mean? 

• FRONTISPIECE (noun)
  The noun FRONTISPIECE has 2 senses:

1. an ornamental facade

2. front illustration facing the title page of a book

  Familiarity information: FRONTISPIECE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FRONTISPIECE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An ornamental facade

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

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

facade; frontage; frontal (the face or front of a building)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Front illustration facing the title page of a book

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

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

front (the side that is seen or that goes first)

 Context examples 

In the first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: I am Doctor Knowall, and have that nailed up above your house-door.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Miss Morland has been talking of nothing more dreadful than a new publication which is shortly to come out, in three duodecimo volumes, two hundred and seventy-six pages in each, with a frontispiece to the first, of two tombstones and a lantern—do you understand?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)