frontal

Frontal is an adjective and noun used across disciplines to denote relation to the front or to the forehead. It derives from Latin frontal-is, from frons, forehead. In common medical and anatomical usage, it relates to structures at or near the front of the skull or to viewpoints from the front. The term appears in phrases such as frontal bone, frontal sinus, and frontal lobe, and in the anatomical plane named the frontal plane, more formally the coronal plane, which divides the body into anterior and posterior portions. A frontal view is a depiction seen from the front.

In anatomy, the frontal bone forms the forehead and contributes to the upper eye sockets, while the frontal lobe of the brain is involved in cognition, planning, and motor control. The frontal sinus is one of the paranasal sinuses.

In meteorology, frontal describes processes associated with weather fronts—boundaries between air masses. Frontal systems generate many weather phenomena, including frontal precipitation from cold fronts and warm fronts, and may be described as stationary or occluded as they evolve.

In other fields, frontal appears in linguistics to describe articulation toward the front of the mouth, and in photography and film to denote a shot taken from the front of a subject. The term is also used in various technical phrases, such as frontal collision in transportation safety.