upward

1. 1
   adverb

   From a lower position to a higher one; toward a higher place or toward the source.

   The trail climbed steadily upward toward the rocky ridge.

   Housing prices have crept upward over the past year.

   Similarup, higher, uphill

   Oppositedown, downward

   Note

   The form is simply up joined to the direction suffix -ward, a pairing already made in Old English upweardes. As an adverb it does not grade: things move upward, not more upward, though the adjective of direction does take more and most. The motion can be moral as well as physical. Richard Hooker sets looking upward against looking inward. More rarely it traces a course back toward its source.

2. 2
   adjective

   Aimed or facing toward a higher place.

   An upward slope made the last mile of the hike exhausting.

   The dancer finished with a sweeping upward gesture of her arm.

   Similarrising, ascending, uphill

   Oppositedownward, descending, downhill

3. 3
   adverb

   In the upper parts of something; above a given point.

   From the elbow upward, her arm was tanned a deep brown.

   From the windowsill upward, the plaster was badly cracked.

   Similarup

   Oppositedown

   Note

   Here the adverb marks position rather than motion, naming whatever lies above a dividing line. Milton puts it to compact use in Paradise Lost, describing Dagon as "upward man, / And downward fish," so that one body is split in two by a pair of adverbs. In ordinary prose the dividing point is usually named with from: from the waist upward, from the sill upward.

4. 4
   adverb

   More than; in excess of the stated number or amount.

   The old farmhouse has stood for upward of two centuries.

   Surveyors counted upward of fifty species in the reserve.

   Note

   Two fixed frames carry this quantity sense. The King James Bible of 1611 counts "from twenty years old and upward". In that frame the figure itself is included, and everything above it follows. The familiar modern frame puts the word first, so upward of fifty species means more than fifty. Keep the of: without it, the phrase falls back into plain direction.

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