Other forms: thwarted, thwarting, thwarts
To thwart is to stop a plan from succeeding. Thwart the plot, thwarted at every turn, plans were thwarted.
It is the plan that gets thwarted rather than the person, and it implies active opposition rather than mere failure. It is a favourite of headlines about foiled plots. As a noun, a thwart is the seat across a rowing boat — the same word, meaning crosswise, which is the whole image.
1verbthwartTo stop a plan from succeeding.
“Bad weather thwarted their plans to climb the mountain.”
2nounseatThe seat across a rowing boat.
“The rower sat down on the thwart and pulled hard on the oars.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
thwart is a blocking.
Middle English thwert comes from Old Norse thvert, meaning crosswise. To thwart is to lie across somebody's path.
Proto-Indo-European
*terkʷ-
Old Norse
þvert
Middle English
thwerte
English, today
thwart
Built from
From Middle English thwerte, from the adjective thwert (“obstinate, perverse”), from Old Norse þvert, neuter of þverr (“transverse”). The English adjective is cognate with Danish tvær (“sullen, sulky”), Gothic 𐌸𐍅𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌷𐍃 (“angry”), Middle Dutch dwers, dwars (modern Dutch dwars (“crosswise, transverse; slantwise, askew; stubbornly disobedient”)), Norwegian tvert, tvært, Old Frisian þweres, dwers (stq twars, West Frisian dwers, dwerz (“across, to the other side of; beyond”)), Middle Low German dwers, dwars (Low German dwars (“contrary; cross-grained”)), Old English þweorh (“transverse; perverse; angry, cross”), Old High German twer (Middle High German twer, quer, modern German quer (“crosswise; cross”)), Swedish tvär (“across, transverse; of a curve: sharp; immediate, sudden; grumpy, stubborn”). It is related to queer; also Proto-West Germanic þwerh,
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA