Word.ws English Dictionary

-wards

UK/wədz/US/wɚdz/

-wards suffix: forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in "backwards", "towards", etc.

Suffix

-wards

  1. Forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in "backwards", "towards", etc.
    • (Katisha:) At once I go Mikado-wards!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

Origin of -wards

From Middle English -wardes, from Old English -weardes, a variant of -weard; equivalent to -ward + -s (adverbial suffix). Cognate with German -wärts, Dutch -waarts.

Questions about -wards

What does -wards mean?
-wards means forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in "backwards", "towards", etc.
What part of speech is -wards?
-wards is a suffix.
How do you pronounce -wards?
-wards is pronounced /wədz/ (UK).

Words near -wards in the dictionary

  1. -vores
  2. -vorous
  3. -vudine
  4. -wad
  5. -ward
  6. -wards
  7. -ware
  8. -wares
  9. -wash
  10. -wave
  11. -way

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: -wards (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “-wards.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/-wards. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.