The Spanish delante (“in front of”) comes from the Latin de- (“of, out of”) and ante (“before”), via intante (in plus ante). So “in front of” is literally “before” in the sense of “standing before.”
Thus, with the de- prefix, it is a cousin of the ante that brings us a host of English words with ante that mean “before”: anterior, antediluvian, antique. We can see the a‑n-t root in all these variations.
