Etymology: Old English tóweard adjective, < tó, to prep. + -weard, -ward suffix. So Old Saxon tôward, -werd, Oid High German zuowart, -wert, adjectives. In Old English, when used attributively, inflected like other adjectives; when in the predicate, uninflected except with plural -e. The adverbial use appears to arise out of the predicative use of the adjective, or from the neuter adjective.

Etymology: Old English tóweard , < tó, to prep. + -weard, -ward suffix; originally the uninflected form or singular neuter of toward adj. In Old English, originally followed by a genitive; later by a dative like the simple to.‘The first pronunciation figured above is now chiefly northern and (apparently) American; the fourth is not recognized in any modern dictionary, British or American, nor apparently by any orthoepist; but it appears to be the prevailing one in London and the south of England.’—N.E.D. See Walker on the word. It was apparently referred to in 1749 by Chesterfield Lett. 27 Sept.: ‘The vulgar man goes to wards and not towards such a place’. It may have arisen from the analytical form in to us ward , to heaven ward , in which to has its ordinary stressless pronunciation as a preposition; and, if so, may have existed locally or as an alternative form, especially in verse, from the 16th cent. So with towards prep. and adv.