Sunday Word: Whitherward

[sallymn]

whitherward [hwith-er-werd]

adjective:
(archaic) toward what or which place

Examples:

I felt him directing my looks to what I beheld, shaping my thoughts whitherward they went; but it pleased him to remain invisible. (William Young, Mathieu Ropars: et cetera)

Messire, whitherward is the stable? (Howard Pyle, The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions)

We see not whence the eddy comes, nor whitherward it is tending, and we seem ourselves to witness their flight without a sense that we are changed; and yet Time is beguiling man of his strength, as the winds rob the woods of their foliage. (Sir Walter Scott, Woodstock)

Arthur looked, and drew at the caitiff who went afoot beside Atra, and Birdalone at him who went by Viridis, for she wotted whitherward Arthur’s shaft would be turned. (William Morris, The Water of the Wondrous Isles)

We know not whom we trust
Nor whitherward we fare,
But we run because we must
Through the great wide air. (Charles Hamilton Sorley, 'The Song of the Ungirt Runners')

Origin:
Inherited from Middle English whiderward, from whider ('whither') from Old English hwider, from Proto-Germanic hwithre-, from hwi- 'who' (from PIE root kwo-) + ward (adverbial suffix of Germanic origin expressing direction or tendency to or from a point, Old English -weard 'toward,' sometimes -weardes (with genitive singular ending of neuter adjectives), from Proto-Germanic werda- (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian -ward, Old Norse -verðr, German -wärts), variant of PIE werto- 'to turn, wind' (from root wer- (2) 'to turn, bend'). ) (Online Etymology Dictionary)

The earliest known use of the adverb whitherward is in the Middle English period (1150—1500). OED's earliest evidence for whitherward is from around 1175, in Ormulum. (Oxford English Dictionary)