Word.ws English Dictionary

shoreward

shoreward adjective: in the direction of the shoreline, relatively speaking.

Adjective

shoreward (not comparable)

  1. In the direction of the shoreline, relatively speaking.
    • When he felt him grasp his tail, Buck headed for the bank, swimming with all his splendid strength. But the progress shoreward was slow; the progress down-stream amazingly rapid.1903 July, Jack London, “For the Love of a Man”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, pages 175–176
    • The shoreward arms of the north and south cantilevers were built into masonry abutments.1950 March, H. A. Vallance, “On Foot Across the Forth Bridge”, in Railway Magazine, page 148
  2. Facing the shore.
    • If their enemies were really on the watch, if they had beleaguered the shoreward end of the pier, he and Lord Foxham were taken in a posture of poor defence […]1883 June 30 – October 20, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter V, in The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, […], published 1888, →OCLC
    • Felixstowe's pier was cut short during the Second World War as an anti-invasion measure. Although its pierhead was subsequently demolished in the 1950s, a new £3 million shoreward building opened in August 2017.2020 July 29, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Railways that reach out over the waves”, in Rail, page 49, photo caption

Adverb

shoreward (not comparable)

  1. Toward the shore.
    • "Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land, / "This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Lotos-Eaters”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza I, page 108

Noun

shoreward (uncountable)

  1. The side facing the shore.
    • […] when they sawe our boates comming to the shoreward, they began to runne away, with a great clamour and outcrie […]1582, chapter 2, in Nicholas Lichefield, transl., The First Booke of the Historie of the Discoverie and Conquest of the East Indias […] set foorth in the Portingale language by Hernan Lopes de...

Synonyms of shoreward

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of shoreward

Origin of shoreward

From shore + -ward.

Questions about shoreward

What does shoreward mean?
Shoreward means in the direction of the shoreline, relatively speaking.
What part of speech is shoreward?
Shoreward can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.

Words near shoreward in the dictionary

  1. shoresides
  2. shoresman
  3. shoresmen
  4. Shoreswood
  5. Shoreview
  6. shoreward
  7. shorewards
  8. shoreweed
  9. shoreweeds
  10. Shorewell Park
  11. shoreworker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shoreward (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: “shoreward.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shoreward. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.