athwart

English

Etymology

From Middle English athwert, athirt, equivalent to a- +‎ thwart. Cognate with Scots athort (“athwart”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈθwɔː(ɹ)t/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t

Adverb

athwart (comparative more athwart, superlative most athwart)

1. (archaic) From side to side; across.

   Synonym: overthwart

   Above, the stars appeared to move slowly athwart.

   We placed one log on the ground, and another athwart, forming a crude cross.
2. (archaic) Across the path (of something).

   a fleet standing athwart our course

   • 2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     And should the moon happen to hit its ever-shifting orbital perigee at the same time that it lies athwart from the sun, we are treated to a so-called supermoon, a full moon that can seem close enough to embrace – as much as 12 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the average full moon.

3. (archaic) Wrongly; perplexingly.

Translations

From side to side, across

• Dutch: van de ene kant naar de andere, dwars over
• French: d’un coté à l’autre, à travers (fr)
• German: quer (de)
• Italian: di traverso
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Maori: tōpeka
• Russian: поперёк (ru) (poperjók)
• Sanskrit: जिह्म (sa) (jihma)
• Spanish: de lado a lado, a través (es)

Preposition

athwart

1. (archaic) From one side to the other side of.

   Synonym: overthwart

   The stars moved slowly athwart the sky.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto III”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Knit with a golden bauldricke, which forelay / Athwart her snowy brest, and did diuide / Her daintie paps […]

   • Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

     At eve the beetle boometh / Athwart the thicket lone.

2. (nautical) Across the line of a ship's course or across its deck.

   The damaged mainmast fell athwart the deck, destroying the ship's boat.

3. Across the path or course of; opposing.

   Synonym: opposing

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p.283:

     It is the voice of human experience within us, judging and condemning all gods that stand athwart the pathway along which it feels itself to be advancing.

   • 2005, Tony Judt, “The Spectre of Revolution”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

     The new fashions were perforce addressed to the more prosperous young: the children of Europe’s white middle-class, who could afford records, concerts, shoes, clothes, make-up and modish hair-styling. But the presentation of these wares cut ostentatiously athwart conventional lines.

Quotations

• 1816, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

  But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted / Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !

• Template:RQ:Chmbrs YngrSt

  Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

Derived terms

• athwartships

Translations

From one side to the other side of

• Arabic: بِعَرْض (biʕarḍ)

  Egyptian Arabic: بعرض (beʿarrḍ)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: че́рез (ru) (čérez)

Across the path or course of; opposing

• Russian: напереко́р (ru) (naperekór)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Further reading

• “athwart”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.