west

Pronunciation

• IPA: /west/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English west, inherited from Old English west (“in or toward the west”),^[2][3][4] from Proto-Germanic *westaz,^[5] which is of uncertain origin.^[2] It is usually connected with the root of Latin vesper (“evening, the west”) and Ancient Greek ἕσπερος (hésperos, “evening”), the west being where the sun sets;^[2][3][5][6] Klein instead suggests a root meaning “to go down”.^[7] Its relatives include Dutch west and Old Norse vestr.^[3][2] French ouest and Spanish oeste were borrowed from English.^[2][3][7] It is related to vesper.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

In or toward the west: Old English west, 886, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and about 725 in Beowulf in the compound West-Dene, “West Danes”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The noun is from the 12th century^[5] and the adjective from about 1375,^[3] though Old English already had compounds such as westdǣl, “west part”.^[5] Western goes back to late Old English, westward to the 13th century and westerly to the 16th.^[5] In geopolitics the West meant Europe as opposed to Asia from the 1860s, and later the Western allies in the First World War.^[2] Go west, “to die”, from the setting sun, became common in that war, and Go west, young man is recorded from 1851.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 725 – West-Dene (Beowulf).^[3]
• 886 – Old English west (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle).^[3]
• 12th century – noun.^[5]
• c. 1375 – adjective.^[3]
• 1851 – Go west, young man.^[6]
• 1860s – the West, Europe.^[2]
• 1914–18 – go west, to die.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The direction in which the sun sets; the cardinal point opposite east.
2. A region lying in the west.
3. (capitalized) Europe and North America as distinct from Asia, or formerly from the Communist countries.
4. (capitalized) The western part of the United States.

Adjective

1. In, toward, facing or coming from the west.

Adverb

1. In, from or toward the west.

Related words

• east
• western
• vesper
• Occident

Usage notes

A separate dialect word west, “a sty on the eyelid”, of unknown origin, is recorded from the mid-16th century.^[4][8]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)