frontier

From Middle English frounter, from Old French fronter (whence Modern French frontière), from front.

• (General American) IPA^(key): /fɹʌnˈtɪɹ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fɹʌnˈtɪə/
• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: fron‧tier

• Audio (US)

  (file)

frontier (plural frontiers)

1. The part of a country which borders or faces another country or unsettled region
   • 1979, Richard Elphic and Hermann Guilomee (editors), The shaping of South African Society, 1652 - 1820, page 297:

     Unlike a boundary, which evokes the image of a line on a map and demarcates spheres of political control, the frontier is an area where colonisation is taking place....no authority is recognised as legitimate by all parties or is able to excersise undisputed control over the area.

2. The most advanced or recent version of something; leading edge.

   the frontier of civilization

3. (obsolete) An outwork of a fortification.
   • Shakespeare

     Palisadoes, frontiers, parapets.

• (part of country bordering another): marches; the border

frontier

1. Lying on the exterior part; bordering; coterminous.

   a frontier town

frontier (third-person singular simple present frontiers, present participle frontiering, simple past and past participle frontiered)

1. (intransitive) To live as pioneers on frontier territory.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To place on the frontier.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Edmund Spenser to this entry?)