Etymology

-wards

Today it means: Forming adjectives and adverbs denoting course or direction to, or motion or tendency toward, as in "backwards", "towards", etc. Full definition →

Middle English -wardes ← Old English -weardes
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The story

  1. Old English · inherited from-weardes
  2. Middle English · inherited from-wardes
  3. English today-wards

From Middle English -wardes, from Old English -weardes, a variant of -weard; equivalent to -ward + -s (adverbial suffix). Cognate with German -wärts, Dutch -waarts.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.