[app. a sb. use (which came in after 1725) of THWART adv. and adj., having reference to the position of the rowing benches or seats athwart or across the boat. Whether its use was partly due to similarity of sound to thaught, thawt, or thought, previously applied to the same thing, is uncertain. Our latest contemporary instance of ‘thaught or thought’ is of 1721, of thoat 1697, of thout 1725, while our first of ‘thaughts or thwarts’ is of 1736, so that the appellations were continuous in use, as if the one had passed into the other. But, for the full determination of the relations between thoft, thought or thaught, and thwart, fuller evidence between 1500 and 1700 is needed. Cf. THOFT, THOUGHT2.] A seat across a boat, on which the rower sits; a rower’s bench.
[1721. Bailey, Thoughts, the Rowers Seats in a Boat.] Ibid. (1736), (folio), Thaughts, v. Thwarts. Ibid., Thwarts, (a Sea Term) the boards or benches laid a-cross boats and gallies, upon which the rowers sit.
1770. Cook, Voy. round World, II. x. (1773), 462. A considerable number of thwarts were laid from gunwale to gunwale.
1776. Falconer’s Dict. Marine, Thwart, the seat or bench of a boat whereon the rowers sit to manage the oars.
1897. F. T. Bullen, Cruise Cachalot, 41. We drew each man his oar across the boat and lashed it firmly down with a piece of line spliced to each thwart.
