The verb to thraw means “to throw” in British dialect, and in Scottish it means “to twist” or “to oppose”. The adjective thrawn can mean “twisted; crooked” or “perverse; contrary”. I discovered this word through a post by my internet buddy Kiri, who wrote about some of the words used in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Apparently thraw comes from throw, and the Online Etymology Dictionary reveals that throw evolved from a root word that meant “to turn”, possibly because of “the notion of whirling a missile before throwing it.”
That may explain the history of the word throw, but I couldn’t find anything on how throw turned into thraw. Why did thraw retain the old meaning “to twist” or “to turn”, even though it came from throw (which already lost that meaning)? Any guesses?