Checking saved dictionary data and trusted language sources. This will stop automatically if a source does not respond.
/ˈfɹəʊ.(w)əd/ · adjective
(archaic, literary) Disobedient, contrary, unmanageable; difficult to deal with; with an evil disposition..
But in the meanwhile, for fear lest if he would wax never the better he would wax much the worse; and from gentle, smooth, sweet, and courteous, might wax angry, rough, froward, and sour, and thereupon be troublous and tedious to the world to make fair weather with; they give him fair words for the while and put him in good comfort, and let him for the rest take his own chance.
The wayes of the frowarde are ſtraunge, but yͤ workes of him yͭ is cleane, are right.
Her onely fault, and that is faults enough, Is, that ſhe is intollerable curſt, And ſhrow’d, and froward, ſo beyond all meaſure, That were my ſtate farre worſer then it is, I would not wed her for a mine of Gold.
All this is true, if Time ſtood ſtill; which contrariwiſe moueth ſo round, that a Froward Retention of Cuſtome, is as turbulent a Thing, as an Innouation: […]
A froward child becomes an untoward youth, who turns a deaf ear to all the admonitions of an afflicted parent.
The old man […] began to suffer in the body as well as the mind. He had formed the determination of setting out in person for Dumfriesshire, when, after having been dogged, peevish, and snappish to his clerks and domestics, to an unusual and almost intolerable degree, the acrimonious humours settled in a hissing-hot fit of the gout, which is a well-known tamer of the most froward spirits, […]
So I took a great dry gourd and, cutting open the head, scooped out the inside and cleaned it; after which I gathered grapes from a vine which grew hard by and squeezed them into the gourd, till it was full of the juice. Then I stopped up the mouth and set in the sun, where I left it for some days, until it became strong wine; and every day I used to drink of it, to comfort and sustain me under my fatigues with that from froward and obstinate fiend; and as often as I drank myself drunk, I forgot my troubles and took new heart.
‘I owe much to Éomer,’ said Théoden. ‘Faithful heart may have froward tongue.’
Use froward when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.
Froward means (archaic, literary) Disobedient, contrary, unmanageable; difficult to deal with; with an evil disposition..
Common synonyms include untoward, wilful, headstrong, willful.
The opposite depends on the specific sense.
But in the meanwhile, for fear lest if he would wax never the better he would wax much the worse; and from gentle, smooth, sweet, and courteous, might wax angry, rough, froward, and sour, and thereupon be troublous and tedious to the world to make fair weather with; they give him fair words for the while and put him in good comfort, and let him for the rest take his own chance.
FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0
Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.