- forward
- O.E. foreweard "toward the front," from fore + -ward. The verb is first recorded 1596. Sense of "early" is from 1526; that of "presumptuous" is attested from 1561. The position in football so called since 1879. British Eng. until mid-20c. preserved the distinction between forward and forwards, the latter expressing "a definite direction viewed in contrast with other directions." In Amer.Eng., however, forward prevails in all senses since Webster (1832) damned forwards as "a corruption."