Thwart meaning

thwôrt
The definition of thwart is to hinder or stop something from happening.

An example of thwart is when you catch your kids in the process of sneaking out.

verb
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To oppose and defeat the efforts, plans, or ambitions of (someone).
verb
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A seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.
noun
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Perverse.
adjective
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To prevent the occurrence, realization, or attainment of.

They thwarted her plans.

verb
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Extending, lying, or passing across; transverse.
adjective
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Eager to oppose, especially wrongly; perverse.
adjective
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Athwart; across.
preposition
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Lying or extending across something else; transverse; oblique.
adjective
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Athwart.
adverb
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A rower's seat extending across a boat.
noun
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A brace extending across a canoe.
noun
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To extend or place over or across.
verb
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To hinder, obstruct, frustrate, or defeat (a person, plans, etc.)
verb
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To prevent; to halt; to cause to fail; to foil; to frustrate.

The police thwarted the would-be assassin.

Our plans for a picnic were thwarted by the thunderstorm.

verb
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(nautical) 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 doughout canoe rarely needs a thwart.

noun
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(nautical) A seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.

The fisherman sat on the aft thwart to row.

noun
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Situated or placed across something else; transverse; oblique.
adjective
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(figuratively) Perverse; crossgrained.

adjective
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Obliquely; transversely; athwart.

adverb
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Origin of thwart

  • Middle English thwerten from thwert across from Old Norse thvert neuter of thverr transverse terkw- in Indo-European roots
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • From Old Norse þvert "˜across', originally neut. of thverr (transverse, across), cognates include Old English þweorh (transverse, perverse, angry, cross), Danish tvær, Gothic 𐌸𐍅𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍃 (þwaírs, “angry"), Dutch dwars (cross-grained, contrary), German quer, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, altered by influence of Proto-Germanic *þweranÄ… (to turn) from Proto-Germanic *þerh-, from Proto-Indo-European *twork-/*twerk- (twist).
    From Wiktionary

Thwart Sentence Examples

  • No one, said his younger brother Lucien, liked to thwart him.

  • I would ask that you bestow defenses upon them to thwart his inevitable attack.

  • But a conqueror came who had no empresses to thwart him.

  • professing to have taken umbrage at Sarpi's extensive correspondence with learned heretics, but more probably determined to thwart the desires of the liberal rulers of Venice.

  • The legislature of 1863 and the state officers were opposed to him politically, and did everything in their power to thwart him and deprive him of his control of the militia.

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