forward Look up forward at Dictionary.com
O.E. foreweard "toward the front," from fore + -ward. The verb is first recorded 1590s. Related: Forwarded. Adj. sense of "early" is from 1520s; that of "presumptuous" is attested from 1560s. The position in football so called since 1879. British English 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."