'frontness' originates from English, specifically the word 'front' plus the suffix '-ness', where 'front' comes from Old French 'front' and Latin 'frons' meaning 'forehead, front', and the suffix '-ness' (from Old English) meant 'state or quality'.

'frontness' changed from Middle English forms built from 'front' plus the noun-forming suffix '-ness' and eventually became the modern English word 'frontness'.

Initially related to the idea of the 'forepart' or 'forehead' (from Latin 'frons'), it came to mean more generally 'the state of being in front' and also acquired a specialized phonetic sense referring to how forward the tongue is for a vowel.