Froward

The adjective froward is little used in current English, but is still to be found in many literary texts. (OED records it also in use as an adverb and a preposition, but in use as either of these word classes, the word is definitely obsolete.)

• Its general meaning is 'argumentative', 'contrary', 'fractious', 'perverse' or 'refractory' (it has an opposite in the even more archaic adjective 'toward)'. It is now most usually applied (when it is used at all) to children who are unruly or 'naughty'.
  • Etymological note: froward was formed from fro, a Scandinavian equivalent of the Old English from (still current in northern Britain: frae in Scots and fra in the northern counties of England), and -ward - -wards. So it meant 'fromwards', 'in the direction from'. Its only current use is the opposite of 'toward used as an adjective.
  • Froward developed its meaning from the adverbial 'in the direction from' through various meanings:
    • through a general sense that 'something to' is something 'in the right direction', or 'helpful', and therefore 'something from (or fro)' is 'in the wrong direction', or 'unhelpful'.
    • This was applied in Middle English to such moral and religious statements as 'he is froward to God', or the advice in Wycliffe's translation of the Bible, c.1382 (Deut. xxi. 18) "If a man gete a rebel sone, and a fraward..." [if a man has a son who rebels against and turns from him] (cited OED). (The whole verse, in the AV, reads "If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them": the penalty to be enacted by the community is stoning to death.
    • From this, it seems a great weakening to 'naughty'.

Froward, untoward and wayward are all, in their different ways, antonyms of toward.