Word.ws English Dictionary

unthrive

unthrive verb: to be unsuccessful.

Verb

unthrive (third-person singular simple present unthrives, present participle unthriving, simple past unthrived or unthrove, past participle unthrived or unthrove or unthriven)

  1. (intransitive, rare) To be unsuccessful
    • For upon trust of Calle's promise, we may soon unthrive; […]1967, John Fenn, Laura Archer-Hind, The Paston letters, volume 2, page 25

Forms of unthrive

third-person singular presentunthrives
present participleunthriving
pastunthrived
pastunthrove
past participleunthrived
past participleunthrove
past participleunthriven

Origin of unthrive

From Middle English unthryven, equivalent to un- + thrive.

Questions about unthrive

What does unthrive mean?
Unthrive means to be unsuccessful.
What part of speech is unthrive?
Unthrive is a verb.
What is the past tense of unthrive?
The past tense of unthrive is unthrived.

Words near unthrive in the dictionary

  1. unthrifts
  2. unthrifty
  3. unthrillable
  4. unthrilled
  5. unthrilling
  6. unthrive
  7. unthriven
  8. unthriving
  9. unthrivingness
  10. unthrobbing
  11. unthrone

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unthrive (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:

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