Talk:forward

adverb

towards a goal
The company has taken a step forward in employee safety.
Indicates that something progresses or improves
The EU is moving forward on monetary union 
From obscurity into public view
The unknown actor came forward and accepted the lead role

--Backinstadiums (talk) 16:15, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

RFV discussion: March 2021

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

forward

Adv. sense:

1. Towards the front or from the front.

RFV "from the front" only. I could be overlooking something obvious, but at the moment I don't see it. If this meaning exists in an obvious way, a made-up usex would be fine to demonstrate it, as far as I'm concerned. Mihia (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Originally, there was no adverbial sense, and the adjectival sense was “Toward the front or from the front onwards; in the usual direction of travel.” The adverbial sense was created in an edit by moving most of the Adjective section to a new Adverb section, while at the same time changing the primary adjectival sense to “Toward the front or at the front.” In the process, the word “onwards” disappeared; the adverbial sense was defined as “Towards the front or from the front; in the usual direction of travel.” The second part was removed in a later edit. This history shows, I think, that the intention always was “from the front in a forward direction” – obviously not usable because of a circularity, even though one might argue that this defines the meaning of the adverb in terms of the adjective, so that there is no real circularity. However, this periphrasis reveals an issue with the definition of the adjective, assuming that the term forward in “forward direction” is an adjective. Does “forward direction” mean “direction toward the front or at the front”? I think that “direction toward the front” works for someone in an oriented vehicle, but not for someone standing in front of a vehicle. The definition does not make clear that this is a body relative direction – specifically, relative to the same body whose front is referred to. The term front implies an orientation of that body.

Now that I’m here: in the ritual of moving the clock forward to celebrate the advent of daylight saving time, which sense of forward is this? Do we move the clock into the future?  --Lambiam 03:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that research. On that basis, I have reworded a couple of the senses. I put the "clock" example under one of them. I think this is an entry that could bear further tinkering and finessing, so anyone please make any further changes if you see fit. Anyway, I will mark the RFV itself as Resolved. (One of my favourite usexes: "From this day forward, there will be no more brussels sprouts at the cafeteria"!). Mihia (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Discussed at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2020/November#US_pronunciation_of_forward, Wiktionary:Tea_room/2020/December#forward. - -sche (discuss) 23:27, 10 August 2021 (UTC)