Toward

How to spell toward

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce toward

What does toward mean?

1. prepositionIn the direction of someone or something, or in relation to a goal, time, or attitude.

Toward in a sentence

• She walked toward the station to catch the early train.

• The company is saving toward a new office building.

Where does toward come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends directly from the Old English tōweard, which combined tō, meaning 'to', with the suffix -weard, meaning 'turned in the direction of'. That -weard element traces back to a Germanic root related to the Latin vertere, 'to turn', and it survives in a whole family of English direction words such as forward, backward, and homeward. In its earliest use tōweard could also act as an adjective meaning 'approaching' or 'imminent', as in something that was 'toward' rather than far off. Over the centuries the directional preposition came to dominate, and English settled on the modern sense of moving or facing in a particular direction. The chief modern wrinkle is not the spelling of the root but whether to add a final s: British writers lean to 'towards', while American writers prefer the bare 'toward', though both forms are old and entirely correct.

How the word is built

• to- (to)
• -ward (in the direction of, turned toward)