Dictionary

shirtfront en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From shirt + front.

Meanings

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. 2025 September 12, Jack Collins, “Why Did Men Stop Wearing Three-Piece Suits?”, in Gentleman's Gazette:
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. 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
3. A pitch that is easy to bat on.
4. (qualifier:Australian rules football) A head-on charge aimed at bumping an opponent to the ground.
5. (slang) An attractive facade applied only to the front of a house.
   • False fronts, frequently called "shirt fronts," are futile attempts to make a small, cheap house pass for something larger and more valuable. 1967, The Appraisal of Real Estate, page 132:
   • 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. 1927, The Bricklayer, Mason and Plasterer, volumes 30-32, page 100:

Forms

Translations (8)

fi etumus (the front part of a shirt) · nrf fale dé c'mînse (the front part of a shirt) · pl przód (the front part of a shirt) · bg нагръдник (the front part of a shirt) · nl voorkant (the front part of a shirt) · ro pieptar (the front part of a shirt) · es peto (the front part of a shirt) · gl cós (the front part of a shirt)

shirtfront en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From shirt + front.

Meanings

1. (Australia, transitive) To confront in a threatening manner.
   • 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. 2014 October 14, “Pravda lashes Tony Abbott as 'disturbed' over threat to shirtfront Vladimir Putin”, in The Guardian:
   • 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. 2014, Philip Chubb, Power Failure:

Forms