Frontispiece

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Frontispiece \Fron"tis*piece\, n. [F. frontispice, LL.
     frontispicium beginning, front of a church, fr. L. frons
     front + spicere, specere, to look at, view: cf. It.
     frontispizio. See {Front} and {Spy}.]
     The part which first meets the eye; as:
     (a) (Arch.) The principal front of a building. [Obs. or R.]


     (b) An ornamental figure or illustration fronting the first
         page, or titlepage, of a book; formerly, the titlepage
         itself.
         [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  frontispiece
       n 1: an ornamental facade
       2: front illustration facing the title page of a book

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  58 Moby Thesaurus words for "frontispiece":
     anteriority, avant-propos, bold front, brave face, brave front,
     breakthrough, display, exordium, facade, face, facet, facia, fore,
     forefront, foreground, forehand, foreland, forepart, forequarter,
     foreside, foreword, front, front elevation, front man,
     front matter, front page, front view, frontage, frontal, frontier,
     head, heading, innovation, introduction, lap, leap, obverse,
     overture, postulate, preamble, preface, prefix, prefixture,
     preliminary, prelude, premise, presupposition, priority, proem,
     prolegomena, prolegomenon, prolepsis, prologue, proscenium,
     protasis, verse, voluntary, window dressing