Forth

How to spell forth

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce forth

What does forth mean?

1. adverbForward in place, time, or order; out into view or action, as in setting something out or bringing it into being.

Forth in a sentence

• The committee set forth its proposal in plain, careful language.

• From that day forth, she logged every expense in a notebook.

Where does forth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that descends from the Old English 'forth', meaning 'forward' or 'onward', and it was already in everyday use long before the Norman Conquest. It belongs to a wide Germanic family, with close relatives in Old Saxon and Old High German, and it is built on the same ancient root that gives us 'for' and 'fore', all carrying the sense of being in front or moving ahead. Over the centuries 'forth' kept its core meaning of motion away from a starting point, as in 'set forth' on a journey or 'bring forth' something new. Its old spatial sense gradually narrowed, so today it survives mostly in fixed phrases such as 'and so forth', 'back and forth', and 'from this day forth'. The spelling trap is that it sounds identical to the number 'fourth', yet 'forth' has no 'u' because it never had anything to do with the number four; remembering its link to 'forward' keeps the two apart.

How the word is built

• forth (from Old English forth: forward, onward); a single unanalysable adverb, related to 'for-' meaning 'forward'

Words that sound like forth

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• fourth: Coming after the third and before the fifth in order or position.