How major style guides rule on "toward"
American guides drop the 's'; British 'towards' is standard in the UK and Commonwealth English.
The disagreement on "toward" is an example of systematic American vs British English differences, the category of style-guide differences that most often confuses copy editors and creates inconsistency across long documents. Below is a guide-by-guide breakdown, drawn directly from the published editions cited.
| Style guide | Preferred form |
|---|---|
| AP Stylebook (2024–2025 Edition) | toward |
| Chicago Manual of Style | toward |
| MLA Handbook | toward |
| APA Publication Manual | toward |
| Merriam-Webster Dictionary | toward (also towards) |
What the divergence actually means
Unlike many compound-modernization decisions where style guides eventually converge, "toward" continues to show genuine divergence between major guides. The AP Stylebook treats this as a settled call; Chicago Manual leaves more flexibility; and Merriam-Webster, as a descriptive dictionary, records both forms. Source: Chicago Manual of Style, 17th Edition
The APA Publication Manual aligns with AP and Chicago on "toward", though APA generally addresses spelling questions only when they intersect with statistical reporting or technical psychology vocabulary. Where the manual is silent, APA defers to Merriam-Webster as its standard reference. Source: APA Publication Manual, 7th Edition
Merriam-Webster lists "toward (also towards)", which serves as the lexicographic baseline for U.S. style decisions. Because Merriam-Webster's entries reflect aggregated published usage rather than editorial preference, when a guide says "follow Merriam-Webster", as APA does, that effectively delegates the call to whichever spelling has dominated the published corpus. Source: Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Garner's Modern English Usage classifies the "toward" / "towards" pair on its Language-Change Index, a five-stage scale measuring whether a once-disputed form has been accepted into Standard English. For systematic American vs British English differences, Garner's typically rates the dominant form at Stage 4 ("ubiquitous but objected to by traditionalists") or Stage 5 ("fully accepted"). Source: Garner's Modern English Usage, 5th Edition
Practical guidance for editors
For working writers, the practical rule is straightforward: in journalism, follow AP; in academic writing in the humanities, follow MLA or Chicago; in social-science publishing, follow APA; in book publishing, follow Chicago. When no house style applies, Merriam-Webster's main entry is the safest default. The differences across these guides on "toward" reflect not disagreement about correctness but different audiences and editorial pressures.
Editorial context
Google Books Ngrams data for American English reveal that toward surpassed towards in printed books around 1830, shortly after Noah Webster's 1828 dictionary endorsed the shorter form to simplify spelling, reflecting his broader reforms against perceived British redundancies. By the 1890s, toward appeared roughly four times more frequently than its alternative in U.S. publications, a ratio widening to over ten-to-one by the mid-20th century amid growing standardization in journalism and academia. This corpus shift underscores a divergence from British English, where towards retained dominance, peaking at twice the frequency of toward in the 2000s. Even today, the U.S. preference holds firm in formal prose, as seen in The team moved toward victory despite the setbacks, though digital influences occasionally introduce British variants from global sources.
Cross-references
For the dictionary entry, frequency data, and pronunciation of toward, see the main word page. For other style-guide spelling decisions in this category, browse all style-guide spelling rulings.