Word.ws English Dictionary

rereward

rereward is the obsolete spelling of rearward.

Meaning of rearward

Noun

rearward (plural rearwards)

  1. The part that comes last or is situated in the rear; conclusion, wind-up.
    • Do not liue Hero, do not ope thine eies: / For did I thinke thou vvouldſt not quickly die / Thought I thy ſpirites vvere ſtronger than thy ſhames / My ſelfe would on the rerevvard of reproches / Strike at thy life.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, Much Adoe about Nothing. […], quarto edition, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Andrew Wise, and William Aspley, published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV...
  2. The last troop; the rear of an army; a rear guard.
    • Come in the rearward of a conquered woe1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 90”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC

See all 4 meanings of rearward

Forms of rereward

pluralrerewards

Origin of rereward

From rere + -ward.

Questions about rereward

What is rereward the obsolete spelling of?
Rereward is the obsolete spelling of rearward.

Words near rereward in the dictionary

  1. rereviews
  2. rerevise
  3. rerevised
  4. rerevises
  5. rerevising
  6. rereward
  7. rerewards
  8. rerig
  9. rerigged
  10. rerigging
  11. reright

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rereward (page history and authors); rearward (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: “rereward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rereward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.