Throws or Throes?
Jamie from Elk Rapids
wrote to complain of a misspelling that she thinks is becoming annoyingly
frequent. She keeps seeing the word throws written in place of throes, as in the throws of winter or the throws
of passion. It’s not unusual that homophones get misused by the careless or
inattentive, but it is, indeed, annoying.
Throe means intense or
violent pain or struggle; throes is the plural form. It is the descendant of an
Old English word that meant affliction, plague, or painful evil. In our day, it
should be distinguished from throw, but ironically, in its long history it was
sometimes spelled throwe, throw, or thraw.
Throw is a synonym for a
toss, but at various times it has meant an act of twisting, a perverse temper, a
needle deflection on a galvanometer, the rotary motion of a shaping machine, a
cast at dice, the act of slamming a wrestling opponent to the mat, a piece of
fabric placed on furniture to protect it, or a shawl.
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