hither and thither
1
9.3
- idiom
- Archaic
:
de aquí para allá
- The gay robes of the beautiful people moved hither and thither among the trees.
- rushed hither and thither
- run hither and thither
- tossed me hither and thither
Examples
-
And everything tossed hither and thither.
-
His chance to find a political solution to the war appears to have gone, leaving him with no option but to continue sending his dwindling reserves hither and thither to meet Free Syrian Army attacks.
Blog text (24) -
With their hopping, lepping, dancing, and rushing about hither and thither, they wear out the boots at a terrible rate, and even though they cheat me every chance they get, I have my own tricks.
Fiction book (2000) -
Sailors and porters rushed hither and thither, leaping from ship to shore as the boats were readied for an on-tide departure.
-
A school of tiny, glittering fish flicked hither and thither in the clear water.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To go to many different places
283
4.8
In a confused, disorganized way with things or thoughts scattered
138
1.7
In different places and not all together
1
3.7
It happens in many places both near and far
1
7.4
Get sent to many different places by other people without getting help
In a scattered way across an area, not in one place
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly built from the meanings of its parts: 'hither' (to this place) + 'and' + 'thither' (to that place), which together denote movement or distribution to multiple places. Although 'hither' and 'thither' are literary/archaic and may be unfamiliar, the spatial logic ('here and there') is compositional and cross‑linguistically common, so a learner who knows the constituents can derive the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Hither and thither comes from the old words hither and thither, which meant 'to here' and 'to there' and paint a picture of moving this way and that way. That's why the phrase means 'in many directions' or 'here and there'.