Effrontery

//ɪˈfɹʌntəɹi// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Insolent and shameless audacity. uncountable

    "We even had the effrontery to suggest that he should leave the country."

  2. 2
    audacious (even arrogant) behavior that you have no right to wordnet
  3. 3
    An act of insolent and shameless audacity. countable

    "Any refusal to salute the president shall be counted as an effrontery."

Synonyms

All synonyms
presumptiontemerityarroganceassumptionassuranceaudacity

Example

More examples

"I was beyond livid at his effrontery."

Etymology

From late 17th century French effronterie, from effronté (“shameless, insolent”), from Old French esfronté, from Vulgar Latin *exfrontātus. Compare Latin effrōns (“barefaced”), from the prefix ex- (“from”) + frōns (“forehead”) (English: front). By surface analysis, ef- + front + -er + -y.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.