An apostrophe (') in front of a word what does it mean?

I've only just seen this (it has only just appeared for me). Its not clear what you mean, you mention an apostrophe in front of a word then show a word with an apostrophe after it.

If you mean after, you would not see a word like place with an apostrophe after it, it would not serve any purpose.

It is used to make a possessive of a plural - you would say the boy's house, if it was just one boy, but the boys' house if referring to the house of more than one boy.

Is that what you are asking?

First of all I would like to point out you have not placed the apostrophe in front of the word in your example.

We read left to right so before the first letter is what most would consider to be in front of. Though I can see how some may think the opposite, as if a word CAR' was a car driving left to right the apostrophe would seem in front of it but that isn't how most people with good grasp of English and grammar will think of it.

It usually denotes a missing letter(s), as pg633 says, and generally when rendering speech phonetically. As in Ricky Ricardo's catchphrase "Lucy, you got some 'splaining to do" - the apostrophe is acknowledging the missing "e" and subbed "x".

So, pretty much the same function it performs for contractions - y'all, can't, don't etc. It's just less common to lead with it.

An apostraphe right at the end of a word ending in "s" can denote ownership by those parties.

E.g. The Teachers' books

That means the books belonging to the teachers.

Whereas "the teacher's books" means the books owned by one teacher.