throw
(continued)
put
sling
toss
thwart
balk
foil
frustrate
inhibit
upon the waters. Pitch is, of course, specifically used in baseball to describe the throwing of the ball by the pitcher to the batter. Even in other contexts, pitch suggests care and accuracy of aim. Bowl as a term used in cricket means to pitch or hurl the ball to the batsman, usually on one bounce, with the arm held fully extended, not bent at the elbow as in baseball pitching ; otherwise the pitch would be ruled a throw, which is illegal. In the U.S. bowling most commonly refers to the game of tenpins or similar games where the ball is bowled by robing it over a level surface. Bowl as a general term is current in both varieties of English with this sense of rolling. To put, in the sense here considered, means to thrust or push forward with the arm, with the f ull force of one’s body behind the motion. The term is now used mainly of the competitive sport of putting the shot (a metal ball), an event in many track and field meets: To put a 16-pound shot over 60 feet requires great strength, coordination, and concentration.
Toss is used almost exclusively of light objects and may suggest a haphazard movement or one in which the notion of aiming for a target is absent: tossing confetti pell-mell; tossing aside a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. Fling, unlike toss, does not necessarily suggest a light object, but it is otherwise similar in implying aimlessness or a forceful wildness of movement: flinging down his briefcase on the table and stomping upstairs. Sling once referred to the sudden force reminiscent of something thrown by a sling; this is less and less present as an implication of the word. It now mainly suggests inaccurate or violent movements, possibly angry ones, as in the stock phrase, slinging mud at your opponents. See discard, propel, rotate.
These words refer to the applying of force in a hostile way so as to repel or subdue any opposing resistance. Thwart suggests the outwitting of an enemy or the undoing of his plans: sending troops to thwart the Irish rebellion. The word often implies the use of cleverness instead of violence to attain the enemy’s defeat and suggests action taken before the enemy himself has had time to move: the scheming villain whose designs on the helpless maiden were always thwarted before the final curtain. The word has recently appeared frequently in a psychological context, suggesting barriers that prevent the full realization of one’s natural endowments: a generous and receptive intelligence that was thwarted from attaining its full scope by bad training, poor schools, and lack of opportunity.
Foil relates to that aspect of thwart that emphasizes the undoing of an enemy’s plan before any damaging action has been accomplished: foiling the assassination plot by placing on the throne a straw dummy dressed like the king. In some modern contexts, the word may sound melodramatic and old-fashioned. Balk relates to that aspect of thwart that emphasizes the imposing of barriers, but balk does not necessarily suggest the interruption of an otherwise natural or inevitable process: every effort at creative teaching balked by the reams of paperwork that had to be filled out each week.
Frustrate in its most general context suggests the confounding of an enemy by tactics short of an open confrontation in direct battle: frustrating Hannibal’s drive toward the sea by hemming in his troops and engaging them in inconclusive night skirmishes. Like thwart, it can suggest the undoing of an enemy’s plans before he can execute them, although in this case the result is less conclusive than with thwart since here it can imply merely forcing the enemy into inaction or into holding
his plans in abeyance: frustrating every effort the prisoner made at getting word to his confederates. When the situation of enemies is not involved, the word may suggest any sort of insurmountable obstacle that reduces someone to galling inaction: talented playwrights frustrated by the high cost of production and the coarse commercialism of Broadway.
Inhibit suggests, like one aspect of frustrate, the forcing of something into inaction rather than a complete routing of it: inhibiting the wageprice spiral by an increase in taxes. Both frustrate and inhibit, however, have gained currency in a psychological context for suggesting barriers that impede normal development or prevent the realization of natural desires. Frustrate here suggests an insoluble conflict between two forces working upon or within a person: frustrated by desires he believed it would be reprehensible to satisfy. Inhibit here specifically suggests the weakening or damaging of normal impulses: rules so rigid as to inhibit any calm development of self-assurance; learning to inhibit those antisocial impulses that would result in injury or harm to others. See confuse, subdue.
Antonyms: permit.
These words refer to the winding and knotting of rope or a similar ma- tie
terial around someone to prevent free movement or to the connecting
of two things by such devices. Tie is the most general of these words kind
in its ability to refer to either situation with the fewest specific restric
tions in meaning: He tied up his victims with torn lengths of bedsheets; tasten
tying one end of the guy wire to a low-hanging branch. Bind can also hitch
apply in both of these situations, but it specifically emphasizes a tight | ^
tying : binding and gagging his captive so that he could neither move
nor speak; a string binding the rhubarb stalks into a bunch. Truss is moor
considerably more informal than any of the other words here and is also secure
alone in referring exclusively to the tying up of someone to prevent free ^
movement: prisoners of war who had been trussed up back to back and truss
guarded until the convoy arrived. The word goes beyond tie in this sense to suggest an extremely tight, careful, or uncomfortable doubling Up and binding of the arms and legs against the body, like a fowl prepared for roasting.
The rest of these words pertain mostly to the connecting of two things by some such means as a rope or wire. Of these, fasten and secure are the most general, even when limited to connections accomplished by tying. Fasten suggests a firm tying in which the elements connected are made incapable of independent motion: He fastened an arrowhead to the shaft with a tough thong. Secure emphasizes the inseparability of the elements connected, but does not suggest loss of independent movement: The ends of the hammock were secured to two well-spaced trees.
Lash, hitch, and moor are all considerably more specific in implication. Lash here is similar to bind in its area of meaning, stressing a firm tying together, especially in a nautical setting: lashing the sail to the yardarm; He lashed himself to the mast so that he could not respond to the singing of the sirens. Hitch particularly stresses the joining together of two mobile things or vehicles: They hitched the stalled car to the wrecker with a long chain. Moor, like lash, has a nautical context, but it is even more specific in stressing the tying of a boat or ship to something immovable: mooring the canoe to a heavy boulder on the bank. See connect, shackle.
Antonyms: free , loosen , separate, sever, unbind .
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