in front of
∞
1.0
- adposition
:
delante de
- I'm going to sit in front of my desk all day.
- stand in front of
- stop in front of
- directly in front of
I have here in front of me the texts.
- I have here in front of me the texts.
- Because you've put challenges in front of me and our team.
- We have to work with the issues in front of us in that way.
- He puts a huge Ukrainian flag in front of his restaurant.
- He said, I want to put Bruno in front of bona fide terrorists.
- Just don't kiss another man in front of me if you're a man.
- But this one time I had to speak in front of the class as myself.
- So you've got your cock out in front of hundreds of women.
- He acted that way in front of the entire world.
- It's putting on a dress and it's dancing in front of people and whatever.
Examples
-
There I was, standing right in front of them, the man they were looking for.
Academic text (2011) -
But this one time I had to speak in front of the class as myself.
-
That girl is standing in front of you right now.
-
Now move it directly in front of the source.
-
We have to work with the issues in front of us in that way.
-
Are you in front of my house?
-
My father sets the Black Forest cake in front of me with a knife.
Fiction book (1990) -
I am standing right in front of the iPhone.
-
And right then, we were in front of a jewelry store.
-
That girl is standing in front of you right now.
Synonyms
Antonyms
How Far
Surface Forms
Morphology
The locative meaning 'ahead of / facing something' is directly and compositionally built from 'in' (position), 'front' (the side nearest a viewer) and the relational particle 'of'; a B1 learner who knows these words can infer the spatial sense. This is a common, cross-linguistic prepositional construction (in + front + of) following standard English composition patterns, so the phrase is immediately comprehensible from its parts.
Etymology
In front of comes from the simple image of the front — the part of a person, vehicle, or building that faces forward. So to be in front of something is to stand ahead of it or where you can see it, which is why it means 'in a position ahead of' or 'in the presence of'.