Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(a) one’s external appearance or style, a pose, esp. one that masks one’s failings, whether financial or otherwise.

[1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) III ii: I overcame my father, man! here with all his front].
[1619		Two Wise Men and All the Rest Fooles V v: Was there euer such a monster hatch’d [...] So shameless, so frontlesse a beast as thou art?].
1891		C. Roberts Adrift in America 205: All you have to do is put a good ‘front on,’ and waltz in with the crowd.
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 29: I know boys that went down there and put on a dizzy front.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 114: They kept up an Affectionate Front before their Acquaintances.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 24 July 2nd sect.11/3 : These diamonds [...] were loaned by him to Johnson says Little, to enable the fighter’s wife to make a ‘front’.
1910		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Girl & the Graft’ Strictly Business (1915) 93: He was all silk hat, diamonds and front. He was all front.
1917		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 4 July [synd. col.] Some of them think they can get away with it [...] by putting on a big front and acting as if they knew all about things.
1924		‘Digit’ Confessions of a Twentieth Century Hobo 43: ‘Say, you two guys aren’t on the road?’ ‘We certainly are, buddy.’ ‘You keep up a good front.’ ‘Oh, we are not exactly broke.’.
1936		J.T. Farrell World I Never Made 95: He didn’t like those insincere glad-hand types. They were all front.
1937		R. Westerby Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 179: He could throw out a front, strike an attitude.
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 37: Here you is strainin’ yo’self to keep up a front.
1959		A. Zugsmith Beat Generation 32: To keep up his front, he kept telling himself they’d pulled in Rajah.
1963		A. Baron Lowlife (2001) 10: I have to keep this front up.
1970		G.F. Newman Sir, You Bastard 86: Only people who had nothing found it necessary to employ front.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 34: If you weren’t tough, you at least put on a tough front.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 407: It was DeAndre who had to give up the front, who was reduced to professing true love.
2006		G. Malkani Londonstani (2007) 5: His perfectly timed an perfectly authentic rudeboy front [i.e. pose].
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 223: I give him my best, can-do front, but fuck that.

(b) a respectable cover or appearance, esp. as a mask for illegal activities.

1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes I 95: Robber, bully, and blackleg, he still continued to maintain an unabashed front.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 17: I made a bold front and told him what I wanted to do.
1892		H. Lawson ‘Jones’s Alley’ in Roderick (1972) 41: We must put on front an’ go on with it now.
1896		Neihart Herald (MT) 18 Apr. 2/4: A hobo’s fly [...] He puts on a good front, bums on the fly, which is hustlin’ on the street.
1912		S. Ford Odd Numbers 258: Tutwater explains how his first investment is to be a new silk lid, [...] and a silver headed walkin’ stick. ‘Good business!’ says I. ‘You’ll need all the front you can carry.’.
1916		W. Scott Seventeen Years in the Und. 61: A good ‘front’ (appearance) in their line is essential to success.
1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 135: The professional check man [...] puts on a ‘big front’.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 13: ‘What’s your front?’ he asks. ‘I’m fakin’ to come from Magdalena, Mexico.’.
1941		N. Davis ‘Don’t Give Your Right Name’ in Goulart (1967) 19: He had a swell front.
1953		E. Reid Shame of N.Y. 142: [ILA president Joseph P.] Ryan can give such characters [i.e. ‘mobsters or politicians’] the protection of union office [...] by granting charters for new locals to act as fronts.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 29: It served as a handy front when one was working the income tax fiddle.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 136: Most of these were just ‘front’ — a super show-off to their important friends.
1998		C. Fleming High Concept 114: For reasons J.R. cannot explain, his front was never exposed.
2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 134: If I want credibility in New York and Monte Carlo I must have a front. Like a casino.
2002		Simon & Burns ‘The Pager’ Wire ser. 1 ep. 5 [TV script] I’m just a front, a clean name for the Liquor Board.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] The only thing missing was a neon sign flashing FRONT.
2014		T. Black Artefacts of the Dead [ebook] ‘He was married, you know.’ ‘Yes, but that could be a front, boss.’.
2017		G. Gilmore Headland [ebook] Fewer people visited this building than any other on the street, but it was no worse a front for that.

(c) a person who is employed or a place that is designated to maintain a respectable appearance behind which third parties, e.g. organised criminals, can hide; e.g. the ‘innocent’ manager and/or purported owner of what is in fact a Mafia-controlled casino.

1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 33: The store was but a ‘front’ or blind for a poker game.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 80: Front. – [...] a grocery store may be the front for a bootlegger’s dive.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 88: Atkinson. Big Hollywood lawyer. Front for the boys.
1942		W. Winchell On Broadway 17 Nov. [synd. col.] Bonnie edwards’ ‘front’ is Conrad Nagel. The real heart-interest is a statesman.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 149: Doc had me take him to Dreamland then, a tea joint with a cigar-store front on South Dearborn.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 12: Leon’s a front and you know it.
1959		J. Gosling Ghost Squad 51: He had used his barber shop as a useful ‘front’ for the traffic in [...] forged coupons.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 97: That means they’d have to bring in a third party as a front.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 800: front– One who maintains an apparently innocent enterprise as a blind behind which lawless persons may work without fear.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 95: A lot of little people are also ‘fronts’ for such operations.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 158: He’s got this golf course job that’s really a front.
1987		B. Chatwin Songlines 30: Its author, a former Marxist, insisted that the Aboriginal Land Rights Movement was a ‘front’ for Soviet expansion in Australia.
2003		Observer Crime 27 Apr. 28: Front. A person with a clean criminal record providing an acceptable face for a known criminal owning a club or business.
2007		N. ‘Razor’ Smith Raiders 74: He bought a cheapo legal motor [...] from a car front.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 126: Getting a call from him after you had let one of his fronts get robbed was terrifying.

(d) (UK Und.) anything one needs – smart clothes, a clever line of speech, a personal style, a mental attitude – for the successful promotion of one’s schemes.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 60: I’ve got the front – meaning my layout of togs. [Ibid.] 146: A front is of value to the busted man. It’s his whole stock in trade. It’s the complete works.
1900		Flynt & Walton Powers That Prey 88: Only day before yesterday Curry from the Front Office was telling me that if he had your ‘front’, as he called it, he’d be living near the Park.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 190: One needed a ‘front’ to make a hit with the managers, and fronts cost money.
1910		H. Hapgood Types From City Streets 126: When they put on all the ‘front’ they can, they ‘get on’ better.
1923		N. Anderson Hobo 140: The younger hobos, especially those who are on the road and off again by turns, are able at times to save money and put on a ‘front’.
1956		J. Thompson ‘The Cellini Chalice’ in Fireworks (1988) 66: Mitch Allison was as lowdown as they come, but his front was strictly high-class.
1966		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 207: I bought me several fronts, old boy, and each one of them motherfuckers cost me a grand.
1972		Milner & Milner Black Players 38: To get your game together usually involves the presentation of self in a particular way which requires certain props. [...] Although he often desires these things for their own sake or as symbols of ‘success,’ he is also aware that they constitute his front, the props he needs to make the proper impression.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 239: Somebody threw a brick through her side window and stole her clothes – all her clothes. It’s hard for her to work without a front.