froward

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English

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WOTD – 10 December 2008

Etymology

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From Middle English froward, fraward, equivalent to fro +‎ -ward. Compare Old English fromweard, framweard (“turned away, having the back turned”).

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈfɹəʊ.(w)əd/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈfɹoʊ.ɚd/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: (UK) -əʊəd

Adjective

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froward (comparative more froward, superlative most froward)

  1. (archaic, literary) Disobedient, contrary, unmanageable; difficult to deal with; with an evil disposition.
    • 1535 October 14 (Gregorian calendar), Myles Coverdale, transl., Biblia: The Byble, […] (Coverdale Bible), [Cologne or Marburg]: [Eucharius Cervicornus and Johannes Soter?], →OCLC, Prouerbes xxj:[8], folio xliij, verso, column 1:
      The wayes of the frowarde are ſtraunge, but yͤ workes of him yͭ is cleane, are right.
    • 1553 (posth.), Thomas More, A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, Book I, Chapter 14:
      But in the meanwhile, for fear lest if he would wax never the better he would wax much the worse; and from gentle, smooth, sweet, and courteous, might wax angry, rough, froward, and sour, and thereupon be troublous and tedious to the world to make fair weather with; they give him fair words for the while and put him in good comfort, and let him for the rest take his own chance.
    • c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii], page 213, column 1:
      Her onely fault, and that is faults enough,
      Is, that ſhe is intollerable curſt,
      And ſhrow’d, and froward, ſo beyond all meaſure,
      That were my ſtate farre worſer then it is,
      I would not wed her for a mine of Gold.
    • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Innouations”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC, page 140:
      All this is true, if Time ſtood ſtill; which contrariwiſe moueth ſo round, that a Froward Retention of Cuſtome, is as turbulent a Thing, as an Innouation: […]
    • 1816, George Crabb, English Synonymes Explained‎[1], London: Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, page 133:
      A froward child becomes an untoward youth, who turns a deaf ear to all the admonitions of an afflicted parent.
    • 1824 June, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in Redgauntlet, […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 50:
      The old man […] began to suffer in the body as well as the mind. He had formed the determination of setting out in person for Dumfriesshire, when, after having been dogged, peevish, and snappish to his clerks and domestics, to an unusual and almost intolerable degree, the acrimonious humours settled in a hissing-hot fit of the gout, which is a well-known tamer of the most froward spirits, […]
    • 1885, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “[Sindbad the Seaman and Sindbad the Landsman] The Fifth Voyage of Sindbad the Seaman. [Night 557.]”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume VI, [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC, page 52:
      So I took a great dry gourd and, cutting open the head, scooped out the inside and cleaned it; after which I gathered grapes from a vine which grew hard by and squeezed them into the gourd, till it was full of the juice. Then I stopped up the mouth and set in the sun, where I left it for some days, until it became strong wine; and every day I used to drink of it, to comfort and sustain me under my fatigues with that from froward and obstinate fiend; and as often as I drank myself drunk, I forgot my troubles and took new heart.
    • 1954 November 11, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “The King of the Golden Hall”, in The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the Rings, 2nd edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1965, →ISBN, book III, page 126:
      ‘I owe much to Éomer,’ said Théoden. ‘Faithful heart may have froward tongue.’
    • 1964, Jan Morris, Spain, Faber and Faber, published 2008, →ISBN:
      […] most of its mansions, now sadly dingy, were built with American gold, and it was to this cold and froward city [Cuenca] […] that the last of the Aztec royal princes, Don Pedro, was brought to die.
    • 2007, Peter Marshall, Mother Leakey and the Bishop: A Ghost Story‎[2], Oxford Univ. Press, →ISBN:
      […] which so incensed this old hag that she grew as froward and sullen as the doctor, […]

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Preposition

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froward

  1. (obsolete) Away from.
    • 1470–1485 (date produced), Thomas Malory, “Capitulum xvii”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book XIII, [London: […] by William Caxton], published 31 July 1485, →OCLC; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: David Nutt, […], 1889, →OCLC:
      Whan Sir Galahad herde hir sey so, he was adrad to be knowyn; and therewith he smote hys horse with his sporys and rode a grete pace froward them.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Alternative forms

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Anagrams

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