rearward

1. 1.

   direction toward the rear

   “his outfit marched to the rearward of the tank divisions”

   Broaderrear

1. 1.

   at or to or toward the back or rear

   “he moved back”

   “tripped when he stepped backward”

   “she looked rearward out the window of the car”

   Synonymsbackbackwardbackwardsrearwards

Other forms of rearward

plural

rearwards·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about rearward

What does rearward mean?

rearward means "located in or toward the back or rear". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in rearward?

rearward has 3 syllables and divides as re-ar-ward under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for rearward?

Close synonyms include rear, reverse, back, backward, backwards. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is rearward a common word?

rearward is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.