Sekirov Dictionary

thwart

UK /θwɔːt/US /θwɔɹt/

verb 4
adjective 3
noun 3
adverb 1
preposition 1
forms 8

verb4

•
To cause to fail; to frustrate, to prevent.
- Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the thunderstorm.
- The police thwarted the would-be assassin.
(no longer used) To hinder or obstruct by placing (something) in the way of; to block, to impede, to oppose.
•
(no longer used) To move (something) across or counter to; to cross.
- An arrow thwarts the air.
(no longer used) To place (something) across (another thing); to position crosswise.

adjective3

Placed or situated across something else; cross, oblique, transverse.
•
(figurative, old-fashioned) Of people: having a tendency to oppose; obstinate, perverse, stubborn.
- […] and it is without all controuersie, that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, generous, maniable, and pliant to gouernment; whereas Ignorance makes them churlish, thwart, and mutinous; […] — 1605
(figurative, old-fashioned) Of situations or things: adverse, unfavourable, unlucky.

noun3

•
A seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.
- The fisherman sat on the aft thwart to row.
•
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.
- A well-made dugout canoe rarely needs a thwart.
(rare) An act of thwarting; something which thwarts; a hindrance, an obstacle.

adverb1

(no longer used) Across the direction of travel or length of; athwart, crosswise, obliquely, transversely.

preposition1

(literary, no longer used) Across, athwart.

forms

thwarted · thwartedst · thwarting · thwarteth · thwarts · thwartest · more thwart · most thwart

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