HOW TO PRONOUNCE
thwart
/θwɔɹt/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 0:47
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What does thwart mean?
adjective
- Placed or situated across something else; cross, oblique, transverse.
verb
- To cause to fail; to frustrate, to prevent.
noun
- A seat across a boat on which a rower may sit.
More meanings (9)
noun
- A brace, perpendicular to the keel, that helps maintain the beam (“breadth”) of a marine vessel against external water pressure and that may serve to support the rail.
- (rare) An act of thwarting; something which thwarts; a hindrance, an obstacle.
adjective
- (dated, figuratively) Of people: having a tendency to oppose; obstinate, perverse, stubborn.
- (dated, figuratively) Of situations or things: adverse, unfavourable, unlucky.
adverb
- (obsolete) Across the direction of travel or length of; athwart, crosswise, obliquely, transversely.
preposition
- (archaic) Across, athwart.
verb
- (obsolete) To place (something) across (another thing); to position crosswise.
- (figuratively, obsolete) To hinder or obstruct by placing (something) in the way of; to block, to impede, to oppose.
- (obsolete) To move (something) across or counter to; to cross.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/θwɔɹt/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
If she must teem, Create her child of spleen, that it may live And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her!
There was one thwart set as low as possible, a kind of stretcher in the bows, and a double paddle for propulsion.
More book examples (3)
“But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwart it?—the case is a little less simple then.”
Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do.
The twenty-sixth day we weighed to come homeward, and by twelve of the clock at noon we were thwart of Trumpet's Island.