means To push something forcefully and suddenly in a particular direction, or the forward force that results from such a push.

from From Old Norse 'þrysta,' to thrust or press, carried into English by Norse settlers and speakers. It's a blunt, muscular word from the start — the kind of term that sounds like the act it names. Over centuries it kept its physical shove while branching out: the thrust of a sword, the thrust of an argument, and eventually the thrust of an engine, where it became the precise word for the force that drives rockets and jets against the pull of everything trying to hold them down.