Word.ws English Dictionary

witherwise

witherwise adverb: in the opposite or wrong direction; contrariwise.

Adverb

witherwise (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, dialectal) In the opposite or wrong direction; contrariwise.
    Synonyms:
    widdershins
  2. (dialectal, rare) Otherwise.

Adjective

witherwise (not comparable)

  1. (rare) Turned the wrong direction; counterclockwise.
    • Job rests the left side of his head on a pillow formed by the extremity of his mattress rolled up in a witherwise spiral.1983, Charles Dennis Minahen, Hermeneutics of the Vortex-structure in Symbolist Aesthetics: Phenomenology of a Symbol as Symbol

Synonyms of witherwise

Origin of witherwise

From wither- + -wise.

Questions about witherwise

What does witherwise mean?
Witherwise means in the opposite or wrong direction; contrariwise.
What part of speech is witherwise?
Witherwise can be an adverb or an adjective.

Words near witherwise in the dictionary

  1. witherward
  2. witherweight
  3. witherweights
  4. witherwin
  5. witherwins
  6. witherwise
  7. withery
  8. withes
  9. Withey
  10. Witheys
  11. withgo

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: witherwise (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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