Word.ws English Dictionary

thrown

/θɹəʊn//θɹoʊn/

thrown is the past participle of throw.

Adjective

thrown (not comparable)

  1. Launched by throwing.
    • a thrown weapon
  2. Twisted into a single thread, as silk or yarn.
  3. (slang) Confused; perplexed.
    • I was totally thrown by his bizarre remarks.

Meaning of throw

Verb

throw (third-person singular simple present throws, present participle throwing, simple past threw or (nonstandard) throwed, past participle thrown or (nonstandard) throwed or (nonstandard) threw)

  1. (transitive) To hurl; to release (an object) with some force from one’s hands, an apparatus, etc. so that it moves rapidly through the air.
    • throw a shoe; throw a javelin
    Synonyms:
    bung, cast, fling, hurl
  2. (transitive) To eject or cause to fall off.
    • the horse threw its rider
    Synonyms:
    eject, throw off
  3. (transitive) To move to another position or condition; to displace.
    • throw the switch
    Synonyms:
    displace, relocate
  4. (transitive) To make (a pot) by shaping clay as it turns on a wheel.
    • Through practice, you’ll learn how to add the right amount of water as you throw a pot, and your fingers will feel when the pot has reached the proper thickness.2009 January 19, Linda Franz, Basic Pottery Making: All the Skills and Tools You Need to Get Started, Stackpole Books, →ISBN
  5. (transitive) To deliver (the ball) illegally by straightening the bowling arm during delivery.
  6. (transitive) To send (an error) to an exception-handling mechanism in order to interrupt normal processing.
    • If the file is read-only, the method throws an invalid-operation exception.

See all 41 meanings of throw

Origin of thrown

From Middle English throwen, from Old English þrāwen, ġeþrāwen, from Proto-Germanic *þrēanaz, from Proto-Germanic *þrēaną. Doublet of thran. Morphologically throw + -n.

Words formed from thrown

Phrases with thrown

94 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with thrown

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about thrown

What does thrown mean?
Thrown means launched by throwing.
What is thrown the past participle of?
Thrown is the past participle of throw.
What part of speech is thrown?
Thrown is an adjective.
How do you pronounce thrown?
Thrown is pronounced /θɹəʊn/ (UK).

Words near thrown in the dictionary

  1. throwing-axe
  2. throwing-axes
  3. throwings
  4. throwline
  5. throwlines
  6. thrown
  7. thrown a bone to
  8. thrown a fit
  9. thrown a kiss
  10. thrown a mickey
  11. thrown a monkey wrench in the works

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: thrown (page history and authors); throw (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Pvanp7-thrown.wav, en-us-thrown.ogg.

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