frontline

or front-line

[ fruhnt-lahyn ]

adjective

1. located or designed to be used at a military front line:

   a frontline ambulance helicopter.

2. of, relating to, or involving the forefront in any action, activity, or field:

   a frontline TV reporter.

3. highly experienced or proficient in the performance of one's duties.
4. of or relating to essential work that depends on in-person interactions and may involve some risk, especially policing, healthcare, emergency services, public transit, grocery, warehouse, and delivery work:

   Congress is taking up a bill that would guarantee sick leave and hazard pay to frontline workers.

Word History and Origins

Origin of frontline¹

First recorded in 1910–15; front (in the military sense) + line ¹( def )

Example Sentences

At energy firm Utilita’s Hampshire call centre on a very cold day earlier this week, I witnessed the cost of living pressures on the frontline.

From BBC

Experts at the Institute for the Study of War believe Russian forces will likely continue to focus on seizing frontline Ukrainian towns and cities this winter with the city of Pokrovsk as one of their main targets.

From BBC

But health care and other frontline workers remain unprotected and under-resourced.

From Salon

"Tracking the functionality of adoptively transferred engineered T-cell products could provide important information on treatment efficacy over time, an assessment which at the moment remains largely unexplored. We hope that with this proof-of-concept, we can help accelerate research into other CAR and TCR T-cell therapies as well as support clinicians on the frontline caring for patients receiving these novel therapies."

From Science Daily

“A certain amount of funding has to go towards funding those frontline services, that is a finite amount of money,” she said.

From BBC