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thwart

Pronunciation: /θwɔːt/

The English word “thwart” has 12 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Placed or situated across something else; cross, oblique, transverse.
  2. Of people: having a tendency to oppose; obstinate, perverse, stubborn.
  3. Of situations or things: adverse, unfavourable, unlucky.

adverb

  1. Across the direction of travel or length of; athwart, crosswise, obliquely, transversely.

preposition

  1. Across, athwart.

verb

  1. To cause to fail; to frustrate, to prevent.
  2. To place (something) across (another thing); to position crosswise.
  3. To hinder or obstruct by placing (something) in the way of; to block, to impede, to oppose.
  4. To move (something) across or counter to; to cross.

noun

  1. A seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.
  2. A brace, perpendicular to the keel, that helps maintain the beam (“breadth”) of a marine vessel against external water pressure and that may serve to support the rail.
  3. An act of thwarting; something which thwarts; a hindrance, an obstacle.

Etymology

From Middle English thwerte, from the adjective thwert (“obstinate, perverse”), from Old Norse þvert, neuter of þverr (“transverse”). Cognates The English adjective is cognate with Danish tvær (“sullen, sulky”), Gothic 𐌸𐍅𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌷𐍃 (þwairhs, “angry”), Middle Dutch dwers, dwars (modern Dutch dwars (“crosswise, transverse; slantwise, askew; stubbornly disobedient”)), Norwegian tvert, tvært, Old Frisian…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.