Is it… Front-end or Front end or Frontend?

Ivan Stevkovski
2 min readAug 1, 2021

“Front-end” — a compound adjective

  • Compound adjectives are used when you are modifying another noun or better put, when you are describing a noun.
  • When you’re using a compound as an adjective, you hyphenate it.

example

  • I’m a front-end developer.
  • He’s a back-end developer.
  • I’m a part-time worker.

Let’s break it down

I’m a front-end developer.

I’m subject pronoun
front-end compound adjective, it’s modifying another noun
developer noun

Wrapping it up

You use “front-end” when you want to describe a noun.

“Front end” — a compound noun

  • Noun is a word that is used to identify any of a class of things.
  • Simply put, a noun is a word that refers to a particular thing. ex: book || cat || car
  • Compound noun is a noun formed from two or more words.

The funny thing about compound nouns is that they can be a little confusing because they can be written in three different ways:

as one word — boyfriend
as two words — boy friend
with a hyphen — boy-friend

However, those three have totally different meanings, and the correct way to write it depends on the meaning. In the case of someone who is romantically involved with a person, it’s boyfriend.

Just like “front end” which is the correct way to be used when you’re using it as a compound noun.

example

  • He’s working on the front end.
  • I’m fixing a rendering issue on the front end.
  • There is an issue on the front end.

Let’s break it down

He’s working on the front end.

working — noun
front — adjective
end — noun

Confusion clear-up

Now you might be asking yourself.. okay so if a compound noun can be written in those three ways, frontend must be correct. Well, it’s as correct as boy-friend. It’s not.

The Cambridge dictionary states the following:

“front end” — the parts of a computer, piece of software, or website that are seen and directly used by the user

“front-end” — used as a compound adjective to describe another noun.

Therefore, based on the Cambridge dictionary, you should use “Front end” (as a compound noun) and “Front-end” (as a compound adjective).

Compound noun ex: There are some issues on the front end.
Compound adjective ex: I am a front-end developer.

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Ivan Stevkovski
Ivan Stevkovski

Written by Ivan Stevkovski

I am a passionate Front-end Developer who strives to design and build modern dynamic and api-powered websites and web applications using the latest standards.

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