Towards vs Direction - What's the difference?
towards | direction |
Variant of toward.
* 1835 , Sir , Sir (James Clark Ross),
* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=October 1, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
, title= (obsolete) In the direction of something (indicated by context).
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , II.iv:
(obsolete) Near; at hand; in state of preparation; toward.
* Shakespeare
The action of directing; pointing (something) or looking towards.
* 1835 , Sir , Sir (James Clark Ross),
Guidance, instruction.
The work of the director in cinema or theater; the skill of directing a film, play etc.
(archaic) An address.
* 1796 , , (The Monk) , Folio Society 1985, p. 218:
The path or course of a given movement, or moving body; an indication of the point toward or from which an object is moving.
*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4
, passage=Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.}}
* 1900 , , (The House Behind the Cedars) , Chapter I,
As a preposition towards
is variant of toward.As an adverb towards
is in the direction of something (indicated by context).As an adjective towards
is near; at hand; in state of preparation; toward.As a noun direction is
the action of directing; pointing (something) or looking towards.towards
English
Preposition
(en-prep) (mainly in British English )Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage …, Volume 1, pp.284-5
- Towards the following morning, the thermometer fell to 5°; and at daylight, there was not an atom of water to be seen in any direction.
Everton 0-2 Liverpool, passage=But with Goodison Park openly directing its full hostility towards Atkinson, Liverpool went ahead when Carroll turned in his first Premier League goal of the season after 70 minutes.}}
Synonyms
* towardUsage notes
* Although some have tried to discern a semantic distinction between the words (term) and (towards), the difference is merely dialectal. (term) is the most common form, while (toward) tends to appear only in American English.See also
* SeeAdverb
(en adverb)- Thus as he spake, lo far away they spyde / A varlet running towards hastily [...].
Adjective
(-)- We have a trifling foolish banquet / Towards .
Statistics
* English prepositionsdirection
English
(wikipedia direction)Noun
(en noun)Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage …, Volume 1, pp.284-5
- Towards the following morning, the thermometer fell to 5°; and at daylight, there was not an atom of water to be seen in any direction .
- Her aunt Leonella was still at Cordova, and she knew not her direction .
- Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction .