inwards

comparative more inwards · superlative most inwards

1. Towards the inside.

   The underframe also carries four bonded-rubber mountings, focused upwards and inwards towards the centre of gravity to suspend the body shell.

   1958 April 28, “Diesel Railbus for British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 275

   1 more example

   As well as their obvious novelty value, the Class 313s offered fast acceleration, those power-operated sliding doors, non-opening passenger windows, closed ventilators to prevent any body part, head or limbs reaching out, drivers' and guards' doors opening inwards, and end doors for emergency exit.

   2023 February 22, Howard Johnston, “Southern '313s': is the end now in sight?”, in RAIL, number 977, page 42

   Synonyms: inward

1. archaicpluralplural onlyArchaic form of innards.

   So I went up and down, and through the street, and down to the harbour-side, like a dog that has lost its master, with a strange gnawing in my inwards, and every now and then a movement of despair.

   1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC

   1 more example

   [A]nd the post mortem performed handily and swiftly right at the edge of the grave, so that the inwards which had caused the pig's death preceded him into the ground and he lay at last resting squarely on the cause of his own undoing.

   1948 January, E. B. White, Death of a Pig, The Atlantic Monthly