Throw

How to spell throw

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce throw

What does throw mean?

1. verbTo propel something through the air with a movement of the arm and hand.
2. nounAn act of throwing, or a light blanket draped over furniture.

Throw in a sentence

• verb

  Please do not throw the ball indoors.

• noun

  A soft woollen throw lay folded across the sofa.

• verb

  He learned to throw a curveball during practice.

• noun

  His final throw landed just inside the boundary line.

Where does throw come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English verb thrawan, which originally meant 'to twist, turn, or curl' rather than 'to hurl through the air'. It belongs to a wider Germanic family, sharing an ancestor with the modern German drehen, meaning 'to turn', and the sense of spinning or twisting survived for centuries in crafts such as the potter who still 'throws' a pot by turning clay on a wheel. The familiar modern meaning of propelling something through the air seems to have grown out of that twisting motion, perhaps from the idea of a winding-up or whirling action before releasing an object. The shift was well established by the Middle English period, gradually pushing aside the older verb 'cast'. A useful spelling note: throw sounds identical to throe, the word for a sharp pang, as in 'death throes', so the two are easily confused in writing even though they are unrelated in origin.

How the word is built

• throw (from Old English thrawan: to twist, turn, hurl)

Words that sound like throw

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

• thrown: The past participle of throw: propelled through the air, or cast or put somewhere with force.