thwart2 (thwart)

[Also dial. thought; prob. a var. of thoft1 (as, reversely, thoft2 is a var. of twist: see tort. Connection with AS. thurh, thought the rower's seat mixed with thwart, Goth. thairh, etc., through, is improbable: see thorough, through1. Cf.athwart.] I. adv. From side to side; acro ; cro wise; transversely; athwart. Yet, whether thwart or flatly it did lyte, The tempred steele did not into his braynepan byte. Spenser, F. Q., VI. vi. 30. The bait was guarded with at least two hundred men, and thirty lying vnder a great tree (that lay thwart as a barricado). Quoted in Capt . John Smith's Works, I. 215. as if lit. a 'cro piece': see thoft, thoft - fel low.] A seat acro a boat on which the oarsman sits. A thwart is usually a special fixture, but a board may be used for the purpose. Some thwarts are contrived to slide backward and forward with the movements of the oarsman, as in light sculls or shells used for rowing exercise or for racing. Take care of your dre in the mud one foot on the thwarts sit in the middle-that's it. Whyte Melville, White Rose, II. vii IMG:content-0386.jpg:[blocks in formation] After-thwart, the thwart furthest aft in a whale-boat, occupled by the after-oarsman. Also called stroke-thwart. -Bow-thwart, the second thwart in a whale-boat, occupied by the bow-oarsman. thwartedly (thwarted-li), adv. Athwart; obliquely. [Rare.] We do not live in the inside of a pearl; but in an atmosphere through which a burning sun shines thwartedly, and over which a sorrowful night must far prevail. Ruskin, Lectures on Art, § 176.