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frontispiece

/ˈfrʌntɪsˌpis/
IPA guide

Other forms: frontispieces

A frontispiece is an illustration on one of a book's first pages, usually opposite the title page. Some editions of Winnie the Pooh include a map of the Hundred Acre Wood as a frontispiece.

Children's books and classics are most likely to have a frontispiece, which is considered a bit old-fashioned today. Your beloved copy of The Wind in the Willows or a collectible edition of Little Women probably include a frontispiece — and the volumes in your Harry Potter collection might as well. In architecture, a frontispiece is something that frames or decorates the entrance to a building. What these two kinds of frontispieces have in common is being located in the front of something.

Definitions of frontispiece
  1. noun
    front illustration facing the title page of a book
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    type of:
    front
    the side that is seen or that goes first
  2. noun
    an ornamental facade
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    type of:
    facade, frontage, frontal
    the face or front of a building
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