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shirtfront

noun

No English definition recorded for this entry.

L327661 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

noun

Etymology: From shirt + front.

  1. The front part of a shirt.

    “In the Victorian Era, exposing your shirtfront in public was considered improper, as shirts were viewed as undergarments. Waistcoats concealed this and helped [to] tame oversized, billowy shirts.”

  2. A detachable insert that simulates the front of a shirt.

    “I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.”

  3. A pitch that is easy to bat on.
  4. A head-on charge aimed at bumping an opponent to the ground.
  5. An attractive facade applied only to the front of a house.

    “It is explained that a "shirt front" building is one of which only the street elevation is given a finished architectural treatment, the sides and back being of cheaper material, with no attempt at unification with the front.”

    “False fronts, frequently called "shirt fronts," are futile attempts to make a small, cheap house pass for something larger and more valuable.”

verb

Etymology: From shirt + front.

  1. To confront in a threatening manner.

    “This was a case of a deputy shirtfronting her leader with an ultimatum and forcing a decision that would come close to wrecking the government's environmental credibility.”

    “Pravda has described Tony Abbott as “a disturbed mind crying out for therapy”: after his threat to “shirtfront” the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in Brisbane.”