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FRONTIER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
An undeveloped field of study; a topic inviting research and development
Example:
he worked at the frontier of brain science
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):
bailiwick; discipline; field; field of study; study; subject; subject area; subject field (a branch of knowledge)
Sense 2
Meaning:
An international boundary or the area (often fortified) immediately inside the boundary
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):
bound; boundary; bounds (the line or plane indicating the limit or extent of something)
Instance hyponyms:
Triple Frontier (the border area where Argentina and Brazil and Paraguay meet; an active South American center for contraband and drug trafficking and money laundering; a suspected locale for Islamic extremist groups)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A wilderness at the edge of a settled area of a country
Example:
the individualism of the frontier in Andrew Jackson's day
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Hypernyms ("frontier" is a kind of...):
wild; wilderness (a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition)
Context examples:
Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there?
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, 'water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.'
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back?
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I remember the portrait of him up in Gatsby's bedroom, a grey, florid man with a hard empty face—the pioneer debauchee who during one phase of American life brought back to the eastern seaboard the savage violence of the frontier brothel and saloon.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
