Wayward

How to spell wayward

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wayward

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wayward mean?

1. adjectiveDifficult to control or predict because of wilful, unruly, or self-willed behaviour.

Wayward in a sentence

• The teacher struggled to keep her wayward class focused during the afternoon.

• A wayward shopping trolley pulled to the left no matter how hard he pushed.

Where does wayward come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Wayward began life in Middle English as a shortened form of 'awayward', an adjective that literally meant 'turned away' or 'facing in the wrong direction'. It was built from 'away', meaning to a distance or off course, plus the old directional suffix '-ward', the same element that still gives us 'toward', 'backward' and 'homeward'. Over time the unstressed first syllable simply dropped off in speech, leaving 'wayward', and the sense drifted from physical turning-away to a more moral and behavioural stubbornness: a person or thing that goes its own way and will not be steered. By the 1300s it was already being used to describe wilful, disobedient people and animals that refused to follow direction. The spelling trap is that it looks as though it should be 'way' plus 'ward' meaning a path, when in truth the 'way' here is the leftover of 'away', a tidy reminder that a wayward thing has wandered off the expected way.

How the word is built

• way (from 'away', turned aside)
• -ward (suffix meaning 'in the direction of')