Forwards

How to spell forwards

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce forwards

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does forwards mean?

1. adverbToward the front, or onward in space or time.

Forwards in a sentence

• She leaned forwards to read the small print on the contract.

• The queue shuffled forwards a few steps as the doors opened.

Where does forwards come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English adverb foreweardes, built from fore, meaning 'before' or 'in front', and the directional element -weard, meaning 'turned toward'. That same -weard survives in a whole family of direction words such as 'toward', 'backward', and 'homeward', all of which describe motion or facing in a particular direction. The trailing -s is the old adverbial genitive ending, the very same -s that turns up in 'always', 'besides', and 'unawares'; in earlier English an -es ending could quietly mark a word as an adverb. Because of that history, English ended up with two living forms, 'forward' and 'forwards', and the s-form became especially common in British usage for the adverb of motion. The spelling trap is the unstressed final syllable, where -ward and the silent-feeling 'r' can tempt writers toward 'forewards' or 'forwords', when the root is simply 'for' plus 'ward'.

How the word is built

• for- (fore: in front, ahead)
• ward (in the direction of)
• -s (adverbial genitive ending)