Frontman

How to spell frontman

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce frontman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does frontman mean?

1. nounThe lead singer or main performer who fronts a musical group.
2. nounA person who serves as the public face or spokesperson for an organisation, sometimes concealing those who really control it.

Frontman in a sentence

• The band's frontman paced the stage and worked the crowd.

• The company installed a respectable frontman to reassure nervous investors.

• As frontman he wrote most of the lyrics and handled the interviews.

• Prosecutors argued he was merely a frontman for the real owners.

Where does frontman come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a modern English compound built from two very old pieces. 'Front' came into English in the 1300s through Old French 'front', itself from the Latin 'frons' (stem 'frontem'), which literally meant 'forehead' and then more broadly 'the foremost part' or 'the face one shows to the world'. 'Man' is a native Germanic word, traceable to Old English 'mann', meaning a human being or, more narrowly, an adult male. Joined together, the compound describes the man who stands at the front and represents the rest. It became common in the twentieth century, first as a term for the visible figure who fronts a business or scheme, and later, especially from the rock and pop era of the 1960s onward, for the charismatic lead performer who stands at the front of a band. Because it is a closed compound, the spelling trap is simply remembering that it is written as one word with no space and no hyphen.

How the word is built

• front (front, foremost position; from Latin frons, frontem 'forehead, foremost part')
• man (Germanic, adult male, person)