Foreword and Forward

These are two often-mistaken words. Some people believe that there is only one word, forward, which means 'ahead', 'toward the front', etc. They believe the same word is used to denote 'the introductory note' of a poetry or anthology. Some other people believe the word for introductory note is foreward. No, there are two words, foreword and forward.

Foreword comes from two words, 'fore' and 'word' (not 'for' and 'ward' or 'fore' and 'ward'), which hence means, a word that comes before other words, an introductory word or a collection of words that form the introduction. That's why the word, foreword means 'introductory note'.

Forward has several meanings, but only one of them corresponds to a noun. It's always an adverb, adjective, or a verb, but not a noun (except in football (soccer for Americans)).

Here are the meanings:

Adjective: ahead, toward the future, at the front, lacking discipline.
Adverb: ahead, indicating progress or improvement, in front of
Verb: to redirect a mail, to advance.

Here are the examples:

As the covey moved forward, we couldn't get its clear picture. A forward girl, she regularly gets rebuked by her father. I am looking forward to meeting my friends. The government employee forwarded the mail to his superior. Our forward planning saved the city from floods.