Talk:throw

I have seen this word spelled throughing and throwing in the media. How would you say, "She was throughing or throwing paper acorss the room."

Correct is: "She was throwing paper acorss the room". The other spelling is a mistake. —Stephen 11:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Parties, Celebrations, etc

Shouldn't there be an additional definition for when the word is used to describe putting together something?

I was just about to request this myself. Any takers? ---> Tooironic 04:12, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

RFV

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throw

Sense "A single instance, occurrence, venture, or chance." Is this really an example of the first sense under the second etymology? If so, it needs to be moved there, and will make that sense extant, not obsolete. — Paul G 15:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Clearly widspread colloquial use, in the US. Third etymology ("Unknown") then? --Connel MacKenzie 12:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. It looks far too close to the purportedly obsolete sense. Needs to be checked in the OED or another good dictionary. — Paul G 15:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed (it's used in The Catcher in the Rye, which I'd consider to be a well-known work, and Connel and Stephen say it's in clearly widespread use); bringing to RFC to figure out how it should be laid out. —Ruakh_TALK 05:09, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup.

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throw

The comment was that it was "not clear that noun sense 4 under etymology 1 does in fact belong under that etymology. We need either to remove this claim, or to back it up with one or more references." — Beobach 06:58, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

• This seems to have been fixed already. Ƿidsiþ 10:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

throw something in somebody's face

Hi, Is this not a derived expression from "throw" (verb)? I am not sure how it should be created or searched: [[throw something in the face]], perhaps? ("I know I've made mistakes but you don't need to throw it in my face every time we argue"). Thanks! --Ahoraes (talk) 05:11, 18 October 2018 (UTC)

throw at

to throw an object in the direction of sb/sth, trying to make it hit them:

He threw stones at the window to try to catch their attention

Oxford Phrasal verbs dictionary

--Backinstadiums (talk) 12:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Possible missing verb sense: venture something at dice

Chambers 1908 has a transitive verb sense "to venture at dice", which I interpret as meaning "to wager in a dice game". So perhaps something like "he ran out of money and threw his shirt"?! We have senses that cover rolling a die and rolling a number on a die, but not rolling a wagered item. Equinox ◑ 01:33, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

throw a party

According to Online Etym. Dict. "in US college slang from 1916". If date and place are correct, it is probably a calque of German "schmeißen" in the sense of "to treat, pay for, entertain with (drink etc.)". 178.7.217.101 22:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

RFV discussion: December 2024–May 2025

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throw (2)

• The distance travelled by something thrown.

a stone's throw

Presently the only example is an isolated idiom in which it is doubtful anyway that the word "throw" itself means "distance travelled". I'm not convinced that this is enough to justify the claimed sense. Is there any better basis on which to keep it? Mihia (talk) 14:40, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia I'm not sure if you have access to OED Online, but it offers a range of cites for this sense. Some of these have been there since NED (sb2 sense 6): [1] - we could very easily copy these cites if wanted. This, that and the other (talk) 23:28, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

There does seem to be variety or productivity in those quotes. Perhaps this usage has now largely collapsed around "stone's throw" as a special idiom, so that reference to other projectiles can seem to be merely a conscious variation of this to modern speakers, at least in the pattern "a X's throw". As far as "throw" itself truly meaning "distance" is concerned, as opposed to the whole idiom or expression conveying the idea, it did occur to me that many other words could be used in the same way. We could say "within the hop of a frog", "within the jump of a flea", "within two tumbles of a louse", "within three bounces of a beach ball", etc. Does this mean that "bounce" is "a distance bounced", "tumble" is "a distance tumbled", and so on and so forth? And does "in two shakes of a lamb's tail" make a "shake" a measurement of time?

I see that Oxford Learner's Dictionary gives "a javelin throw of 57 metres" as an example of sense "the distance that something is thrown". I think that this is going too far. Surely this is just "X of measurement" pattern, like "an ascent of 1000 ft", "a whale of twenty tons", or anything else. Mihia (talk) 20:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

RFV passed as clearly in widespread use in phrases like ‘javelin/stone’s/pebble’s throw’. Of course a case could be made for taking this to RFD but this passes RFV. Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)