Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. From side to side; crosswise or transversely.
- adv. So as to thwart, obstruct, or oppose; perversely.
- prep. From one side to the other of; across: "the Stars that shoot athwart the Night” ( Alexander Pope).
- prep. Contrary to; against.
- prep. Nautical Across the course, line, or length of.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Crosswise; from side to side; transversely.
- In opposition to the proper or expected course; in a manner to cross and perplex; crossly; wrongly; wrongfully.
- Across; from side to side of.
- Nautical, across the line of a ship's course.
- In opposition to; against; contrary to.
Wiktionary
- adv. archaic From side to side; across.
- adv. archaic Across the path (of something).
- prep. archaic From one side to the other side of.
- prep. nautical Across the line of a ship's course or across its deck.
- prep. archaic Across the path or course of; opposing.
GNU Webster's 1913
- prep. Across; from side to side of.
- prep. (Naut.) Across the direction or course of.
- adv. Across, especially in an oblique direction; sidewise; obliquely.
- adv. Across the course; so as to thwart; perversely.
WordNet 3.0
- adv. at right angles to the center line of a ship
- adv. at an oblique angle
Etymologies
- From a- + thwart. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English : a-, on; see a-2 + thwert, across; see thwart. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I call it athwart parking rather than parallel parking.”
“Then Sir Guy rose gently and laid his sword athwart the stream from bank to bank; so the weasel passed over the sword, as it had been a bridge, and having made his way to a hole at the foot of the hill on the other side, went in thereat.”
Legends That Every Child Should Know; a Selection of the Great Legends of All Times for Young People
“Not coincidentally, this rift is deepening even as Gujarat booms economically, with brand-new malls, multi plexes, highways, and private ports transforming it into a pulsing region-state athwart Indian Ocean trade routes.”
“-The purpose of conservatism is to stand athwart history--William F. Buckley, Jr.”
“The White Silence, for the moment driven to the rimming forest, seemed ever crushing inward; the stars danced with great leaps, as is their wont in the time of the Great Cold; while the Spirits of the Pole trailed their robes of glory athwart the heavens.”
“At high noon the sun, without raising its rim above the southern horizon, threw a suggestion of fire athwart the heavens, then quickly drew it back.”
“William F. Buckley's upstart conservative magazine, National Review, made its debut in 1955 with the now-famous opening line that it "stands athwart history, yelling Stop.”
“It was a little like John Kerry's anti-Vietnam protest at the Capitol in 1971, utilizing the most stilted Pentagonese jargon to describe demonstrations "athwart hostile infiltration" of the Congress, and so forth.”
The Huffington Post: Conrad Black: My Manifesto For the Occupy Movement
“But when politicians make that dangerous leap to novelist, one wants to crib from William F. Buckley and stand athwart Capitol Hill yelling please, for the love of God, stop.”
“They saw it as an alternative air-and-naval hub to Karachi that, along with the port of Pasni to the east, would make Pakistan a great Indian Ocean power athwart the whole Near East.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘athwart’.
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Anglish
Words that can replace Latinates.
frosent, gainsay, fremd, inrush, frain, huru, wordbook, wordstock, byspel, elfshine, infaru, glam and 98 more...
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Any words List Its open!!
Im savin it for later
awesepoto
cooliest
sup
a-w-e-s-o-m-e
cool beans dude
hit me man
Rock on
Get a life dude
book timeweird, mongolian, 7457, saitin, toejam, aver, misanthrope, blandishment, cadge, fuschia, fuchsia, discotheque and 367 more...
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Rare Words - A
Not just rare words, but thousands of RARE WORDS WITH DEFINITIONS.
If you want to see the definitions, too, go to
http://phrontistery.i...aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abapical, abarticular, abasement, abasia, abask, abatis and 1214 more...
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When a door is ajar
Words with the prefix "a"
ajar, asleep, akin, ablaze, afoot, abed, aground, aback, afloat, alive, abaft, abloom and 91 more...
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phrontistery - a
from phrontistery.info
aba, abacinate, abactor, abaculus, abaft, abampere, abapical, abarticular, abasement, abasia, abask, abatis and 1214 more...
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Thresholds
we are all just passing through.
(boundaries, portals and liminal spaces/times)cockcrow, interface, thin line, portal, postern, littoral, interstice, port, membrane, skin, crepuscule, dawn and 304 more...
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Old-timey Function Words
Function Word
Herein we place all the therebys, amongsts and withals.hereby, thereby, whereby, herein, therein, wherein, forthwith, therewith, withal, amongst, moreover, heretofore and 21 more...
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Sound Sex
taciturn, deflower, recursive, parapraxis, comitative, atelic, awkward, eccentric, libidinous, astereognosis, aloof, moonglade and 50 more...
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Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 83 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, A
abaculus, abacus, abaft, abarticular, abbreviate, abeyance, abiding, anthocyanin, antemeridian, arcane, adjure, adduce and 418 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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Good Words
fenestering, cetic, immanent, quickening, archetypal, shibboleth, soma, wetware, heritable, Apotheosis, halcyon, cellar door and 482 more...
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bilby's Words
pandemic, whirl, guffaw, ethereal, feisty, dunt, ephemeral, pule, flipergebet, prink, maunder, gammon and 1023 more...
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paper
ineluctable, onus, polemic, mendacious, empirical, athwart, lucubration, adumbrate, allay
Tweets
Looking for tweets for athwart.
bilby "Hassan Abd al-Hassad, an Agha Khan, basks at an ashram - a Taj Mahal that has grand parks and grass lawns, all as vast as parklands at Alhambra and Valhalla. Hassan can, at a handclap, call a vassal at hand and ask that all staff plan a bacchanal - a gala ball that has what pagan charm small galas lack. Hassan claps, and (tah-dah) an Arab lass at a swank spa can draw a man's bath and wash a man's back, as Arab lads fawn and hang, athwart an altar, amaranth garlands as fragrant as attar - a balm that calms all angst. A dwarf can flap a palm branch that fans a fat maharajah. A naphtha lamp can cast a calm warmth."
- Christian Bok, 'Eunoia'. Oct 30, 2008
milosrdenstvi "...if NATIONAL REVIEW is superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."
-- Wm. F. Buckley
I always thought that was a neat turn of phrase. Aug 18, 2008
yarb "In this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline..."
- George Eliot, Middlemarch Feb 14, 2008
chained_bear "'Such tales have I heard of Captain Bentinck's palls, or rather shrouds, and his triangular courses, of Captain Pakenham's newly-discovered rudder, of Captain Bolton's jury-mast, of improved iron-horses, dogs, dolphins, mouses — or mice as some say — puddings...'
"'Puddings, my dear sir?' cried Graham.
"'Puddings. We trice 'em athwart the starboard gumbrils, when sailing by and large.'
"'The starboard gumbrils ... by and large,' said Graham, and with a passing qualm Stephen recalled that the Professor had an unusually good memory..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 76 Feb 11, 2008