Word.ws English Dictionary

forworth

forworth verb: to perish, forfare; come to nought or ruin; go wrong.

Verb

forworth (third-person singular simple present forworths, present participle forworthing, simple past forworthed or forword, past participle forworthed or forword or forworthen or forworden)

  1. (Northern England, Scotland, intransitive, obsolete, rare) To perish, forfare; come to nought or ruin; go wrong.
  2. (Northern England, Scotland, intransitive, obsolete, rare) To degenerate (into); become (something inferior); come to.

Forms of forworth

third-person singular presentforworths
present participleforworthing
pastforworthed
pastforword
past participleforworthed
past participleforword
past participleforworthen
past participleforworden

Origin of forworth

From Middle English forworthen, from Old English forweorþan (“to perish, pass away, vanish; deteriorate, sicken”), from Proto-Germanic *frawerþaną (“to perish, come to ruin”), equivalent to for- (“away, wrongly, badly”) + worth (“to turn into, become”). Cognate with Dutch verworden.

Questions about forworth

What does forworth mean?
Forworth means to perish, forfare; come to nought or ruin; go wrong.
What part of speech is forworth?
Forworth is a verb.
What is the past tense of forworth?
The past tense of forworth is forworthed.

Words near forworth in the dictionary

  1. forworked
  2. forworking
  3. forworks
  4. forworn
  5. forworship
  6. forworth
  7. forwound
  8. forwounded
  9. forwounding
  10. forwounds
  11. forwrap

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: forworth (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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