athwart

a- +‎ thwart

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /əˈθwɔː(ɹ)t/
• Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t

athwart (comparative more athwart, superlative most athwart)

1. (archaic) From side to side; across.

   Above, the stars appeared to move slowly athwart.

   We placed one log on the ground, and another athwart, forming a crude cross.

   • 1646, Thomas Browne, “Of the Same [i.e., the Blacknesse of Negroes]”, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths, London: Printed for Tho. Harper for Edvvard Dod, OCLC 838860010; Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths. […], book 6, 2nd corrected and much enlarged edition, London: Printed by A. Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath. Ekins, […], 1650, OCLC 152706203, page 282:

     Thus the Aſſe having a peculiar mark of a croſſe made by a black liſt down his back, and another athwart, or at right angles down his ſhoulders; common opinion aſcribes this figure unto a peculiar ſignation; ſince that beaſt had the honour to bear our Saviour on his back.

2. (archaic) Across the path (of something).

   a fleet standing athwart our course

   • 2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times‎:

     And should the moon happen to hit its ever-shifting orbital perigee at the same time that it lies athwart from the sun, we are treated to a so-called supermoon, a full moon that can seem close enough to embrace – as much as 12 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the average full moon.

3. (archaic) Wrongly; perplexingly.

athwart

1. (archaic) From one side to the other side of.

   The stars moved slowly athwart the sky.

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Qveene. […], London: Printed [by John Wolfe] for VVilliam Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, book II, canto III:

     Knit with a golden bauldricke, which forelay / Athwart her snowy brest, and did diuide / Her daintie paps […]

   • Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

     At eve the beetle boometh / Athwart the thicket lone.

2. (nautical) Across the line of a ship's course or across its deck.

   The damaged mainmast fell athwart the deck, destroying the ship's boat.

3. (archaic) Across the path or course of; opposing.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Folio Society 2008, p.283:

     It is the voice of human experience within us, judging and condemning all gods that stand athwart the pathway along which it feels itself to be advancing.

• 1816, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan

  But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted / Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !

• 1907, Robert William Chambers, chapter V, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, OCLC 24962326:

  Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

• athwartships