Up front or upfront?
up front is an adjective meaning “Open, honest; tending to disclose information; truthful”; upfront is an adjective meaning “Honest, frank and straightforward”. up front is written as two words and upfront as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between up front and upfront?
| up front | upfront | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, adverb | adjective, adverb, noun, verb |
| Meaning | Open, honest; tending to disclose information; truthful At the beginning; before anything begins At the front | Honest, frank and straightforward Open, admitted, out Beforehand |
| Example | I will be up front with you: what you are asking may be costly and difficult | My commissioners pay half of the price upfront and the other half after they receive the finished product |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ʌpˈfɹʌnt/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | 3.0 times per million words |
Sources: up front and upfront in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of up front and upfront
up front
- 1
Open, honest; tending to disclose information; truthful
I will be up front with you: what you are asking may be costly and difficult
- 2
At the beginning; before anything begins
If we settle on the terms of the deal up front there will be much less arguing later
- 3
Alternative spelling of upfront
- 4
Alternative spelling of upfront
- 5
At the front
If you don't have anything to do up front, help organize the boxes in back
- 6
In attacking positions
upfront
- 1
Honest, frank and straightforward
- 2
Beforehand
My commissioners pay half of the price upfront and the other half after they receive the finished product
- 3
A meeting of network executives with the press and major advertisers, signaling the start of advertising sales for a new season
- 4
To bring to the fore; to place up front for consideration
- 5
Open, admitted, out
- 6
As an attacker
He's a poor defender, so we always play him upfront
- 7
In a forward, leading or frontward position
- 8
Of money, paid in advance
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, up front or upfront?
up front is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; upfront 3.0 times per million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search up front vs upfront?
“up front vs upfront” is searched about 110 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“upfront vs up front”, “up front or upfront”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.