• (RP) IPA: /əˈθwɔː(ɹ)t/

athwart

1. (archaic) From side to side; across.

   Synonyms: overthwart

   Above, the stars appeared to move slowly athwart.

   We placed one log on the ground, and another athwart, forming a crude cross.

   • 1646, Thomas Browne, “Of the Same [i.e., the Blacknesse of Negroes]”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths, London: Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, OCLC 838860010 ↗; Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths. […], 2nd corrected and much enlarged edition, London: Printed by A. Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath. Ekins, […], 1650, OCLC 152706203 ↗, book 6, page 282 ↗:

     Thus the Aſſe having a peculiar mark of a croſſe made by a black liſt down his back, and another athwart, or at right angles down his ſhoulders; common opinion aſcribes this figure unto a peculiar ſignation; ſince that beaſt had the honour to bear our Saviour on his back.

2. (archaic) Across the path (of something).

   a fleet standing athwart our course

3. (archaic) Wrongly; perplexingly.

• French: d'un coté à l'autre, à travers
• German: quer
• Italian: di traverso
• Russian: поперёк
• Spanish: de lado a lado, a través

1. (archaic) From one side to the other side of.

   Synonyms: overthwart

   The stars moved slowly athwart the sky.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938 ↗, book II, canto III:

     Knit with a golden bauldricke, which forelay / Athwart her snowy brest, and did diuide / Her daintie paps {{...}

   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, Claribel

     At eve the beetle boometh / Athwart the thicket lone.

2. (nautical) Across the line of a ship's course or across its deck.

   The damaged mainmast fell athwart the deck, destroying the ship's boat.

3. Across the path or course of; opposing.

   Synonyms: opposing

   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p.283:

     It is the voice of human experience within us, judging and condemning all gods that stand athwart the pathway along which it feels itself to be advancing.

• Russian: че́рез

• Russian: напереко́р