Word of the day March 07, 2014 froward • \FROH-erd\ • adjective : habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition Examples: The nanny informed the parents that she would seek employment elsewhere if the froward child could not be compelled to be more obedient. I first saw [the great-tailed grackles] during that amazing week in Texas three years ago and looked forward to renewing our acquaintance. By the end of the trip I was happy to be rid of them—pushy, froward little party-crashing beasts that make rude, high-pitched squeals and constantly invite themselves to dinner, filching from unattended plates. — From an article in the Lewiston Morning Tribune (Idaho), September 30, 2010 Did you know? Once upon a time, in the days of Middle English, froward and toward were opposites. Froward meant moving or facing away from something or someone; toward meant moving or facing in the direction of something or someone. (The suffix -ward is from Old English -weard, meaning moving, tending, facing.) Froward also meant difficult to deal with, perverse; toward meant willing, compliant, obliging. Each went its own way in the end: froward lost its away from sense as long ago as the 16th century and the willing sense of toward disappeared in the 18th century. A third relative, untoward, developed in the 15th century as a synonym for froward in its unruly or intractable” sense, and later developed other meanings, including improper or indecorous.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 11:53:24 +0000
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