To and fro

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day this morning caught SC's eye by looking like a misspelling in the subject line. It turned out to be rather interesting:

froward \FROH-erd\ adjective : habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition

Example sentence:
"When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best, but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little to keep it quiet till it falls asleep. . . ." (Sir William Temple, _Miscellanea_)

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.

It may be archaic, but SC is delighted to discover that "froward" was an antonym of "toward". But for a few historical accidents, we could imagine saying "fromorrow" to mean "yesterday". There are, of course, plenty of words where no antonym exists merely on account of the prefix having one.. We have no "inperts" on TV to challenge the experts, and no "downheld" legal precedents to stop following in favor of the upheld ones. It's fun to imagine them, though.

Comments

[The Tensor]

I've always thought that "overthrow" or "throw down" would be an evocative antonym for "uphold" (in the legal sense). It'd lend an epic feel to the whole business. Imagine Ian McKellan as the Chief Justice of the Council of the Wise intoning, "We found the lower court judge's reasoning unconvincing, and so we threw down his ruling and smote its ruin upon the mountainside!"

[Kenny]

Yet "untoward" is by no means a dead word.

[krk realty]

Educational and useful post you have here. I never thought that it would be possible for us to use such words.