Throve

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Grew vigorously or flourished in a healthy, successful way over a period of time
2. Developed strongly and prospered, showing robust growth or success in circumstances that favored it
3. Past tense describing something that flourished, expanded, or did well in its surroundings

Etymology: "Throve" is the simple past of "thrive," and the past tense is one of the verb's stranger features: "thrive" is a verb that picked up a second past form, "thrived," and the older "throve" survives beside it. The verb itself arrived in English from Old Norse, not from the Old English that supplied most of our basic vocabulary. Its Old Norse ancestor, "þrífa," meant "to seize, grasp, take hold," and the sense of prospering grew out of that idea of grasping something firmly enough to hold on to it. That grasping sense connects "thrive" to a family of Scandinavian relatives that still mean "to thrive" or "to feel at home." Swedish "trivas" and Danish "trives" both describe a person or plant doing well in its surroundings, which shows how the Norse root's notion of taking hold of good conditions survived in the modern languages.

Synonyms: flourished, prospered, bloomed, succeeded

Antonyms: withered, failed, declined, languished