In archaic or dialectal usage, the act of forwarding or sending something onward; advancement or progression.
From 'forward' plus the suffix '-al', which creates nouns from adjectives or verbs (like 'arrival', 'denial', 'removal'). The '-al' suffix comes from Old French and Latin '-alis'.
Words ending in '-al' are fascinating because they're mostly nouns made from adjectives—'forward' becomes 'forwardal'—but this particular word never caught on, probably because 'forwarding' was already doing the job better!
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