"-wards" meaning in English

See -wards in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Suffix

IPA: /wədz/ [Received-Pronunciation], /wɚdz/ [General-American], /wɔːdz/ [Received-Pronunciation], /wɔɹdz/ [General-American]
Etymology: From Middle English -wardes, from Old English -weardes, a variant of -weard; equivalent to -ward + -s (adverbial suffix). Cognate with German -wärts, Dutch -waarts. Etymology templates: {{root|en|ine-pro|*wert-}}, {{inh|en|enm|-wardes}} Middle English -wardes, {{inh|en|ang|-weardes}} Old English -weardes, {{af|en|-ward|-s|id2=adverbial|pos2=adverbial suffix}} -ward + -s (adverbial suffix), {{cog|de|-wärts}} German -wärts, {{cog|nl|-waarts}} Dutch -waarts Head templates: {{head|en|suffix|cat2=adverb-forming suffixes|cat3=adjective-forming suffixes|cat4=|head=|id=}} -wards, {{en-suffix|cat2=adverb-forming suffixes|cat3=adjective-forming suffixes}} -wards
  1. Forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in "backwards", "towards", etc. Tags: morpheme Related terms: -ward Translations (forming adjectives): -waarts (Dutch) Translations (forming adverbs): -waarts (Dutch), -päin (Finnish), -wärts (German), ־ה (-a) (Hebrew), ל־ (l'-) (Hebrew), -up (Latvian), אַר־ (ar-) (Yiddish)
{
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        "2": "ine-pro",
        "3": "*wert-"
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      "args": {
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      "expansion": "Middle English -wardes",
      "name": "inh"
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      "args": {
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      },
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    },
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      },
      "expansion": "-ward + -s (adverbial suffix)",
      "name": "af"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "de",
        "2": "-wärts"
      },
      "expansion": "German -wärts",
      "name": "cog"
    },
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      "args": {
        "1": "nl",
        "2": "-waarts"
      },
      "expansion": "Dutch -waarts",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From Middle English -wardes, from Old English -weardes, a variant of -weard; equivalent to -ward + -s (adverbial suffix). Cognate with German -wärts, Dutch -waarts.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "suffix",
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      "categories": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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          "kind": "other",
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Latvian translations",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert; Arthur Sullivan, composer, “The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu”, in […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC:",
          "text": "(Katisha:) At once I go Mikado-wards!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in \"backwards\", \"towards\", etc."
      ],
      "id": "en--wards-en-suffix-JndLNqQD",
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "-ward"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "morpheme"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "lang_code": "nl",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "-waarts"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "lang_code": "fi",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "-päin"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "lang_code": "de",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "-wärts"
        },
        {
          "code": "he",
          "lang": "Hebrew",
          "lang_code": "he",
          "roman": "-a",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "־ה"
        },
        {
          "code": "he",
          "lang": "Hebrew",
          "lang_code": "he",
          "roman": "l'-",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "ל־"
        },
        {
          "code": "lv",
          "lang": "Latvian",
          "lang_code": "lv",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "-up"
        },
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          "code": "yi",
          "lang": "Yiddish",
          "lang_code": "yi",
          "roman": "ar-",
          "sense": "forming adverbs",
          "word": "אַר־"
        },
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          "lang": "Dutch",
          "lang_code": "nl",
          "sense": "forming adjectives",
          "word": "-waarts"
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      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
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      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/wɔɹdz/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "-wards"
}
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      },
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      "name": "af"
    },
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "de",
        "2": "-wärts"
      },
      "expansion": "German -wärts",
      "name": "cog"
    },
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      "args": {
        "1": "nl",
        "2": "-waarts"
      },
      "expansion": "Dutch -waarts",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
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    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "suffix",
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        "cat3": "adjective-forming suffixes",
        "cat4": "",
        "head": "",
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      },
      "expansion": "-wards",
      "name": "head"
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      "args": {
        "cat2": "adverb-forming suffixes",
        "cat3": "adjective-forming suffixes"
      },
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    }
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  "lang_code": "en",
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    {
      "word": "-ward"
    }
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        "English adverb-forming suffixes",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        "English terms derived from Middle English",
        "English terms derived from Old English",
        "English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European",
        "English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *wert-",
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        "English terms inherited from Old English",
        "English terms suffixed with -s (adverbial)",
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        "Terms with Finnish translations",
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        "Terms with Hebrew translations",
        "Terms with Latvian translations",
        "Terms with Yiddish translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert; Arthur Sullivan, composer, “The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu”, in […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC:",
          "text": "(Katisha:) At once I go Mikado-wards!",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in \"backwards\", \"towards\", etc."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "morpheme"
      ]
    }
  ],
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    {
      "ipa": "/wədz/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/wɚdz/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
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      "ipa": "/wɔːdz/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/wɔɹdz/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "lang_code": "nl",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "-waarts"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "lang_code": "fi",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "-päin"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "-wärts"
    },
    {
      "code": "he",
      "lang": "Hebrew",
      "lang_code": "he",
      "roman": "-a",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "־ה"
    },
    {
      "code": "he",
      "lang": "Hebrew",
      "lang_code": "he",
      "roman": "l'-",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "ל־"
    },
    {
      "code": "lv",
      "lang": "Latvian",
      "lang_code": "lv",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "-up"
    },
    {
      "code": "yi",
      "lang": "Yiddish",
      "lang_code": "yi",
      "roman": "ar-",
      "sense": "forming adverbs",
      "word": "אַר־"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "lang_code": "nl",
      "sense": "forming adjectives",
      "word": "-waarts"
    }
  ],
  "word": "-wards"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.