threw
- 1Past tense of throw.
The pitcher threw a fast curveball past the batter.
Protesters threw rotten fruit at the carriage as it passed.
Note
A strong past tense, made by changing the vowel rather than adding -ed. It descends from Old English þrēaw, the past of þrāwan. It stands alone without an auxiliary (she threw, they threw) and carries every meaning of throw, from the potter who threw a bowl to the program that threw an error. After have or had, standard English switches to thrown.
- 2Past participle of throw. Nonstandard: careful speakers and writers use thrown.
She had threw the letter out before reading it properly.
We have threw away too much food this month.
Note
Spoken English often lets the past-tense shape stand where standard grammar wants thrown. "I'd have threw lead at him," says a speaker in John McPhee's The Pine Barrens (1967), and Tracy Brown's Criminal Minded (2005) uses it in a character's voice. It comes after have, had or should have. In dialogue it marks a voice, but in your own edited prose write thrown, because threw after an auxiliary reads as an error.
threw is a form of throw
throw, verb: To propel an object rapidly through the air with force, by hand or with an apparatus, including passing a ball in a sport such as American football. Full entry
- Spelling
- throw → threw: irregular (no -ed)
Use it in a sentence
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Origin
"Threw" comes from Middle English threw, from Old English þrēaw, the past tense of þrāwan ("to throw"). This traces back through West Germanic and Proto-Germanic forms, ultimately from a reduplication of the Proto-Germanic verb *þrēaną.