1. Of position: With the end (as distinguished from the side) uppermost, foremost, or turned towards the spectator. Also Endways on.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 87. To dig small holes … and put in the Plants endwise.
1679. Plot, Staffordsh. (1686), 193. Set obliquely like a pack of Cards, endways or edgways.
1709. Berkeley, Ess. Vision, § 2. Distance being a line directed endwise to the eye.
1722. De Foe, Col. Jack (1840), 47. The book lay end-way.
1855. Longf., Hiaw., VIII. 101. The birch canoe stood endwise.
1857. Mrs. Gaskell, C. Brontë (1860), 3. The flag-stones with which it is paved are placed endways.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., xiii. (ed. 12), 78. A stone was set up endwise.
1879. Miss Jackson, Shropsh. Word-bk., s.v., The house standing endways-on to the street.
1884. Times, 22 Sept., 2/4. The little town, looking endways on to the river from a terraced slope.
b. In the direction of the ends; also, end to end.
a. 1608. Sir F. Vere, Comm., 125. The Poulder … broad-wayes lay due West, and end-ways North and South.
1862. Jrnl. Soc. Arts, X. 327/1. Strips of vulcanised india-rubber, cemented endways.
2. Of motion: † a. End on, in a direct line, continuously. (Obs. exc. dial.) b. End foremost. c. In the direction of the ends, lengthwise; also quasi-adj.
a. 1575. Turberv., Venerie, 86. Hartes which have bene hunted, do most commonly runne endwayes as farre as they have force.
1641. Hobbes, Lett., Wks. 1845, VII. 456. As if a footman should run with double swiftnesse endwayes.
1855. Whitby Gloss., Endways, forward.
b. 1765. Griffith, Storm, in Phil. Trans., LV. 277. More than one [splinter] flew end-ways like an arrow.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 480. A large pine has been seen … to pitch over endwise.
1870. Barnum, in R. Anderson, Missions Amer. Bd., IV. xlii. 421. Taking the gun in both hands and striking with it endwise.
c. c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 138. Take the tube … and shaking it endways, the mercury will run into the tube.
1791. Smeaton, Edystone L. (1793), 196. The stress upon the legs is always endways.
1819. Playfair, Nat. Phil. (ed. 3), I. 165. The strength of the beam to resist a force applied to it endwise.
1850. Chubb’s Locks & Keys, 13. A compound of both endway pushing and revolving motion.
1882. Nature, XXVI. 509. The endwise action of so large a force.
