athwart

Meanings

1. From side to side, often in an oblique manner; across or over.
2. Across the path of something, so as to impede progress.
3. Against the anticipated or appropriate course of something; improperly, perversely, wrongly.

1. From one side to the other side of; across.
2. Across the course or path of, so as to meet; hence (figuratively), to the attention of.
3. Across the course or path of, so as to oppose.
4. Across; through.
5. Opposed to.
6. Across the line of a ship's course, or across its deck.

Etymology

From Late Middle English athwert, athirt, from a- (prefix meaning ‘in the direction of, toward’) + thwert (“crosswise; (cooking) across the grain”, adverb). Thwert is derived from thwert (“crosswise, transverse; counter, opposing; contrary, obstinate, stubborn”, adjective), borrowed from Old Norse þvert (“across, athwart”), originally the neuter form of þverr (“across, transverse”), from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz (“cross; adverse”) (altered or influenced by Proto-Germanic *þweraną (“to stir; to swirl; to turn”)), from Proto-Germanic *þerh-, probably from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”). The English word is analysable as a- (prefix meaning ‘in the direction of, toward’) + thwart (“placed or situated across something else”). Cognates * Scots athort (“athwart”)