rarely with advb. gen. -s forthrights, adv., a. and sb. arch. [f. FORTH adv. + RIGHT a. and adv., in OE. riht, rihte: cf. DOWNRIGHT.] A. adv.
1. Directly forward, in or towards the front, straight before one.
a. 1000. Ags. Gloss., in Haupt’s Zeitschr., IX. 406. Indeclinabiliter, forðrihte.
c. 1205. Lay., 1522.
| Brutus nom his cnihtes | |
| & iwende forð rihtes | |
| to þon ilke weie | |
| þer him iwised wes. |
a. 1366[?]. Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 294.
| She mighte loke in no visage | |
| Of man or womman forth-right pleyn, | |
| But shette oon ye for disdeyn. |
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. ii. (1495), 104. That heryth not only fourth ryght but all abowte.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia, II. 115. He ever going so just with the horse, either forth-right or turning, that it seemed, as he borrowed the horse’s body, so he lent the horse his mind.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, XII. 1076.
| Surpriz’d with fear, he fled along the Field; | |
| And now forthright, and now in Orbits wheel’d. |
1818. Keats, Endym., II. 431.
| Until, impatient in embarrassment, | |
| He forthright pass’d. |
1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, III. viii. 153. Reach the good man your hand, my girl; forthright, from the shoulder, like a brave boxer.
† b. Straight out, horizontally. Obs.
1640. Parkinson, Theat. Bot., 356. The fruite which is small and round (standing some forthright, and some upright).
2. Straightway, immediately, at once.
c. 1200. Ormin, 2481.
| He … wollde forrþrihht hire himm fra | |
| All stillelike shædenn. |
a. 1225. St. Marher., 15. Ant tenne some agulteð eawiht [sc. ha moten] gan anan forðriht þæt ha [etc.].
1590. Spenser, F. Q., II. vii. 35.
| Thence forward he him led, and shortly brought | |
| Vnto another rowme, whose dore forthright, | |
| To him did open, as it had beene taught. |
1609. C. Butler, Fem. Mon. (1634), 131. You may see some slaine forthright with the thrust of the Speare: some so deadly wounded, that they are not able to goe three foot from the place.
1659. Torriano, A ribibo, forthright, as it were carelesly.
1882. Swinburne, Tristram of Lyonesse, 49.
| Up forthright upon his steed [he] | |
| Leapt, as one blithe of battle. |
B. adj.
1. Proceeding in a straight course, directly in front of one, straight forward.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gloss., in Wülcker 222/30. Directanei, forðrihte.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., IX. i. (1495), 345. Streyghte and forthryghte meuynge.
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying-Ins., 190. A sting, which groweth out of the under part of the tayl, and is forked like a Snakes tongue, having two points forth-right, not barbed like a Bees, so that it stinges more than once.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s, xxxvi. You will be then no stranger to the policy of life, which deals in mining and countermining,—now in making feints, now in making forthright passes.
1865. C. J. Vaughan, Words fr. Gosp., 71. Must thine eye be thus roving, thy forthright vision thus distracted?
1878. Stevenson, Inland Voy., 145. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like a straw, and runs fast in time and space.
2. fig. Going straight to the point, straightforward, unswerving;, outspoken; also, unhesitating, dexterous.
1855. Browning, Men & Wom., II. Andrea del Sarto, 5. This low-pulsed forthright craftsman’s hand of mine.
1867. Swinburne, in Fortn. Rev., July, 22. In direct narrative power, in clear forthright manner of procedure, not seemingly troubled to select, to pick and sift and winnow, yet never superfluous or verbose, never straggling or jarring; in these high qualities it resembles the work of Chaucer.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind., 261. Langland’s verse runs mostly like a brook, with a beguiling and wellnigh slumberous prattle, but he, more often than any writer of his class, flashes into salient lines, gets inside our guard with the home-thrust of a forthright word, and he gains if taken piecemeal.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 422. His speech was in accordance with the practical, forthright, non-argumentative turn of his mind.
C. sb. A straight course or path; lit. and fig. (Chiefly after Shakespeare.)
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., III. iii. 158.
| If you giue way, | |
| Or hedge aside from the direct forth right. | |
| Ibid. (1610), Tem., III. iii. 3. | |
| Here’s a maze trod indeede | |
| Through fourth rights, & Meanders. |
1880. Browning, Dram. Idylls, Ser. II. Clive, 11.
| Thought grows busy, thrids each pathway of old years, | |
| Notes this forthright, that meander, till the long-past life appears. |
1884. Bp. Barry, in Contemp. Rev., Sept., 409. Materialism with its maze of ‘forthrights and meanders’ is utterly at fault.
1887. Lowell, Pr. Wks. (1890), VI. 186. He [President Cleveland] has not allowed himself to be lured from the direct forthright by any temptation to discuss the more general and at present mainly academic questions of free trade or protection.
Hence Forthrightness, the quality of being forthright; straightforwardness.
1873. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. II. 123. Dante’s concise forthrightness of phrase, which to that of most other poets is as a stab to a blow with a cudgel, the vigor of his thought, the beauty of his images, the refinement of his conception of spiritual things, are marvellous if we compare him with his age and its best achievement.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, I. 224–5. It was, throughout life, Paul’s unhappy fate to kindle the most virulent animosities, because, though conciliatory and courteous, by temperament, he yet carried into his arguments that intensity and forthrightness which awaken dormant opposition.
